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NASCAR Cup

Kyle Busch: Texas showed that title rival Truex "can be beat"

With his win at Martinsville Speedway, Kyle Busch was the first driver locked into the Championship 4.

Lee Spencer

Edited: Nov 10, 2017, 4:41 PM

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Kyle Busch, Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, Martin Truex Jr., Furniture Row Racing Toyota

Kevin Harvick, Stewart-Haas Racing Ford, Martin Truex Jr., Furniture Row Racing Toyota

Martin Truex Jr., Furniture Row Racing Toyota, pit stop

Martin Truex Jr., Furniture Row Racing Toyota

Martin Truex Jr., Furniture Row Racing Toyota, Kyle Busch, Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota

Martin Truex Jr., Furniture Row Racing Toyota

Martin Truex Jr., Furniture Row Racing Toyota win stickers

Kyle Busch, Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, Martin Truex Jr., Furniture Row Racing Toyota

Martin Truex Jr., Furniture Row Racing Toyota Kyle Busch, Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota

Martin Truex Jr., Furniture Row Racing Toyota, Kyle Busch, Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota

For the third-straight year, the 2015 Cup champion enters the season finale with a shot at the title. While the remaining drivers in the Round of 8 were still in limbo last weekend at Texas Motor Speedway—with the bottom five of them set to battle for the fourth and final unclaimed spot Sunday at Phoenix Raceway—Busch could focus solely on the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

But he doesn’t want to lose his edge along the way.

“I feel like being able to concentrate on Homestead is beneficial for sure,” Busch said. “I still think that, even when you know you’re going to Homestead, you still have to focus on Texas a little bit and Phoenix a little bit, because you just can’t turn your game on and off like that.

“For us, it’s been more about the opportunity of thinking about Homestead for two weeks, but still being able to think about Texas and Phoenix and making sure we continue to elevate our game and clean up our game, get rid of some of our mistakes.”

Experience is key

Of the three drivers locked into the final four, Busch and Kevin Harvick are the only former champions. Harvick won Homestead and the title in 2014—the first year under the new Playoff format. Busch won the following season. Busch feels that experience offers him and crew chief Adam Stevens a leg up on the competition.

“You look back at the history of Homestead over the last three years with Harvick winning, myself winning and (Jimmie) Johnson winning,” Busch said. “It’s going to take winning the checkered flag to win the championship. That’s how we look at it. That’s how we feel about it. We felt like last year we had a really good shot at being able to do that. It just came down to some restarts at the end, and we weren’t great at the restarts, so we know that’s a game we have to improve on and make sure that we’re really good and ready for at the end of the race.”

Statistically, Busch is having one of the best seasons of his career. With two races to go, Busch has matched his second-best season total with five wins but surpassed his previous record of three poles with eight. His 1,980 laps led are his most at the point since 2008 (1,673).

Truex remains the driver to beat

However the field—Busch included—has played second fiddle to Martin Truex Jr. this season, particularly at intermediate tracks, where the No. 78 Furniture Row Racing team has won six of its seven races this season, including three in the Playoffs. The streak of 1.5-mile wins in the postseason came to an end last week when Harvick topped Truex at Texas.

Truex's vulnerability offered hope to his fellow contenders.

“It was interesting to see how the 78 was beat at Texas,” Busch said. “I didn’t expect that. I thought they were out there a pretty good ways. But I was dealing with my own race. I think it kind of shines a light that they can be beat. I just think you have to have everything go your way and be in perfect order. You have to have a little bit of luck on your side when you’re at Homestead in that final race.

"We’ve raced against the 78 before and the 4 before in this final race in 2015 at Homestead—and we were also racing against Jeff Gordon in his final season that year—that was our fourth championship contender in that event—and we were able to beat all of them. So I’m sure we’d like to think we can be the best of them once again.”

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