Fuel strategy proves to be the difference-maker in Kyle Busch's Pocono victory
By Bob Pockrass
FOX Sports NASCAR Writer
LONG POND, Pa. – Kyle Busch had a crew member in his car during a pit stop Sunday at Pocono Raceway, trying to fix that his car was stuck in fourth gear.
The crew member didn’t get it fixed. But in the end, the team used that problem to win the race.
Because Busch knew he would get torched on restarts, the team decided to pit him one lap later than the rest of the drivers who pitted with 46 laps remaining because restarting in the rear wouldn’t matter.
William Byron and Denny Hamlin, both trying to stretch it 46 laps on fuel over the 2.5-mile track, had to pit in the final three laps while Busch nursed his car to victory in the Pocono Mountains 500.
"We would never have been in that position if we didn't have the trans stuck. ... It put us in the perfect spot that we were topped off [for fuel]," Busch said. "We were like, ‘Look, put as much gas in it as we can. Pack it full. We're going to run it out of the rest of the day.’"
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Here are three takeaways from the second race of the Pocono doubleheader weekend:
Fuel strategy: Good
Busch, Kyle Larson (second) and Bubba Wallace (fifth) were able to stretch it on fuel successfully.
With the 550 horsepower, high downforce package that the Cup cars had at Pocono, it isn’t easy to save fuel because a driver can’t afford to lift off the throttle early going into the corners. Busch had the extra issue of not being able to use the clutch because of the transmission issue.
That meant at times lifting on the straightaways and/or shutting off the engine to coast and save fuel.
"That's how fuel-mileage races are. It's fun to a point, especially when you come out on top of it and you do it right," Busch said. "That makes you feel good. There was one other fuel-mileage race last year. That is how we won at Texas."
Wallace earned his first top-10 finish while driving for 23XI Racing, co-owned by Michael Jordan and driver Denny Hamlin.
"A racer wants to win," Wallace said. "If you’ve got to save fuel to win, then hell, yeah, I’ll do it. I’ll listen. I won’t go against what the engineers are saying. ... They tell me what to do, and I’ll execute that."
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Fuel strategy: Bad
Byron had to pit at the end of Lap 138 of the 140-lap race, handing the lead to Hamlin, who then had to pit coming to the white flag.
"We had control of the race there and were right on our number to make it or not, but it just didn’t work out," Byron said. "We had a really fast car. ... It sucks to lose like that, but I feel like we had everything we needed in the car. We just couldn’t save enough fuel."
Byron finished 12th, and Hamlin finished 14th.
"I do what I’m told. ... We’ve pitted on the last lap three weeks in a row," Hamlin said. "I hate seeing the white coming to pit road. It’s so frustrating. Fuel mileage got us the last two weeks, and lug nuts the week before."
Pocono doubleheader success
When NASCAR set the 2020 schedule, it was poised to try an experiment of running two Cup races on one weekend at Pocono Raceway.
It ended up running three doubleheader weekends because of the pandemic, but none of them had fans.
The first doubleheader with fans this weekend proved to be successful, with solid crowds both days and a full campground for Pocono, which typically has had two races seven or eight weeks apart during the summer, a short window between races because of the weather in the Pennsylvania mountains.
Bob Pockrass has spent decades covering motorsports, including the past 30 Daytona 500s. He joined FOX Sports in 2019 following stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram @bobpockrass. Looking for more NASCAR content? Sign up for the FOX Sports NASCAR Newsletter with Bob Pockrass!