Kurt Busch Wins the Game of Weather Roulette in Michigan Victory

The Quicken Loans 400 at Michigan International Speedway was A Tale of Two Busches, and in that sense only, it was old-school Charles Dickens.

The best of times and the worst of times.

The theme song could have been “Baby, the Rain Must Fall.”

But when? One Busch brother won at the roulette wheel. The other was playing for high stakes and lost might nigh everything.

Many others could have won just as easily had the climactic deluge come earlier or later. At least two, Kyle Larson and Danica Patrick, could have backed into Victory Lane had Mother Nature been rooting for them.

Date	Track	Miles/Scheduled	Winner
6/14/15	Michigan	276/400	Kurt Busch
7/6/14	Daytona	280/400	Aric Almirola
8/5/12	Pocono	245/400	Jeff Gordon
3/25/12	Fontana	258/400	Tony Stewart
6/28/09	Loudon	289/319	Joey Logano

Kurt Busch won for the second time this season because his Chevrolet was best calibrated for when it was going to rain for the final time. The race, scheduled for 200 laps (400 miles), made it to Lap 138—or 276 miles—before it ended prematurely after four red-flag stoppages.

Luck was involved, but it was, as often noted, where preparation met opportunity. Busch’s unflappable crew chief, Tony Gibson, and spotter Rick Carelli coolly analyzed the prospects and kept the driver abreast of the meteorology.

Christian Petersen/Getty Images

“We could see the storms starting to build,” Gibson said in a media conference. “It’s stressful when it rains like that, when it’s off and on and off and on. 

“You’re looking at a radar screen, but you don’t know exactly when it’s going to hit. It was pretty stressful for everybody, but everybody stayed calm and cool. Rick Carelli did a great job in the spotting stand keeping Kurt informed.”

Kurt Busch was driving his backup car, having crashed while practicing on Friday. Next week the series takes a much-needed break before the road race in Sonoma, California, on June 28.

“Any time you win, it comes with a basket full of goodies,” he said, “and...way [more of the unknown] comes from this, and that is the pep in the step of the crew members, and genuine chemistry and the feel on the shop floor.

“Any time you win a second race, it really gives you that stamp [that] you’re in the Chase, and now let’s work through these summer months to make the team better. … Everybody will take this win and enjoy it for an extra week, recharge, and that will give us the gas we’re going to need to go all the way to [the final race] at Homestead.”

In Victory Lane—OK, actually, it was a makeshift site that was out of the rain—Kurt Busch said, “You have to get down and dirty,” though it would have been more appropriate if he had said “wet and soggy.”

“You have to really roll up your sleeves, get your elbows dirty and put the work into it,” Busch further explained, “and (crew chief) Tony Gibson makes these guys work a little extra hard.”

Team chemistry. Thanks to every decal plastered on the side. Plaudits to everyone remotely associated with Stewart-Haas Racing. Fantastic series. Pleasure to drive in. Assorted other items deemed “amazing” and “unbelievable.”

Not the least of which was the rain. It was fast. It was unpredictable. It wouldn’t go away.

Rain benefited the senior Busch brother. It buried the junior, perhaps not just for Sunday, but for that Sprint Cup Chase flickering in the distance.

The ending was a consequence of how a roulette wheel spun and how the competition fell, skittering around and around until the wheel stopped because rain started.

Fox Sports analyst Darrell Waltrip, who, to be fair, is a tad prone to hyperbole, told the television audience, “That was the strangest race I’ve ever seen.”

Another who might have won had Mother Nature behaved differently, Martin Truex Jr., said in a post-race media conference, “More than anything else, it’s just a pain in the butt.

“I mean, you get in [the car], you get ready to go, and you’re like, all right here we come, getting ready to go green, and it’s raining again. … It’s kind of a big letdown when you’ve got to stop and get out of the car again.”

Aaron Doster-USA TODAY Sports

Truex, by the way, has finished in the top 10 in 14 of the 15 races to date, a feat last achieved by Richard Petty at the start of the 1969 season.

What separated the winner from runner-up Dale Earnhardt Jr. and third-place finisher Truex was Busch’s ability to clear them on what would be the final restart. He was behind Kyle Larson, the talented second-year driver still looking for his first Cup victory. All three had gambled on pit road for track position, sensing the end was near. But Larson had to pit on Lap 132, enabling Busch to inherit the lead.

“When it came to restarts, [my car] didn’t take off as well as the ‘41’ (Kurt Busch),” Earnhardt said. “I think, on the long run, again, we were one of the best cars.”

Ha. Long run. On Sunday, a long run was having to run from pit road to the garage without an umbrella.

If he’d been able to wait five more minutes before he pitted his Chevrolet, Larson would now have it. Crew chief Chris Heroy's gamble put him in position to win, but the timing was slightly off.

“We could see weather coming there off of (Turn) 4 and just praying that it would get here in time for me to stay out and be in the lead when the rain did hit,” Larson said. “Hey, I applaud my guys for trying. We are pretty deep (18^th) in the points, so we have to take risks like that to make the Chase.

“I’m happy with the call. I just wish the rain would have come three laps sooner.”

On this day, the Anti-Busch, in terms of luck, was also a Busch. Kyle was a contender. He is noted for his ability to save a car that is seemingly out of control. That's why what happened on the 53rd lap seemed odd. Racing alongside his brother and eventual winner, Kyle’s Toyota nosed in, and when he overcorrected, it headed into the fourth-turn wall, just missing Kurt’s Chevy.

Bob Brodbeck/Associated Press

It was sort of unexpected to see Kyle Busch lose control without at least a fight. He had recently pitted. It wasn’t tire failure.

Apparently, at least according to point leader Kevin Harvick in radio communication with his crew later replayed on Fox, it was raining when officials decided to unfurl the green flag.

NASCAR gave Kyle Busch—who missed the season’s first 11 races while recovering from leg injuries suffered in a Daytona Xfinity Series and who won a race in that series at Michigan on Saturday—a waiver that enables him to qualify for the Chase, now 11 races away, if he can win a Cup race. But that's only if he reaches the top 30 in the point standings.

The crash relegated him to dead last, 43rd. He received one point, giving him 78 for the season. At the moment, 30th-place Justin Allgaier has 251. The Michigan disaster was a setback Kyle Busch may find impossible to surmount.

What may have crushed Kyle Busch’s Chase hopes also made for a noteworthy setback for Carl Edwards (12th), who led 43 laps and was ahead during another stoppage; pole winner Kasey Kahne (15th); Larson (16th); Jimmie Johnson (19th), Jeff Gordon (21st); and Harvick (29th), who led more laps (63) than anyone else.

Kurt Busch led six. The top 10 combined led 23.

The co-owner of the winning team, Gene Haas, said, “You know, racing is a hard sport.

“I tell you, when you see Kurt out there, driving that way, when it comes down to it, when he needs to pull ahead of another driver, there are skills out there they just don’t teach you anywhere.”

And weather. There’s weather out there too.

All quotes are taken from NASCAR media, team and manufacturer sources unless otherwise noted.