A special car on a special day for Kyle Busch

ByBOB POCKRASS
July 24, 2016, 10:00 PM

— -- INDIANAPOLIS -- Kyle Busch set a NASCAR standard in winning one of the biggest races of the year in the only way fitting for Busch.

He stunk up the show.

The driver that many NASCAR fans love to hate pummeled their favorite drivers once again Sunday in capturing the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He led the final 109 laps and 149 of the 170 overall.

"I felt pretty good to be up front and obviously you've got to do everything in your power to not screw it up," Busch said.

"I can imagine if I would have ... beaten one of those guys with the super fast cars [in the past] how they would have felt because I know how I would have felt here today."

It would have been a bitter pill, possibly with Busch walking away from his car with reporters trying to get a comment out of him.

But the only thing he could taste was smoke from a burnout as he celebrated his fourth win of the season and his back-to-back Brickyard victories.

The NASCAR gods did their best to make this race close, triggered by a piece of debris that NASCAR confiscated in wondering what car would litter the track to bunch the field with 10 laps to go.

That only delayed the inevitable by about 30 minutes after a couple of crashes and a couple of long cleanups forced Busch to actually save gas. Busch more than held his own on the restarts, putting his frustration over the cautions out of his mind long enough to make sure no one would pass him.

"We had the race in our hands that we can manipulate the restarts how I needed to and make sure that I got to the No. 1 spot and Matt [Kenseth] was able to do the same thing last week [at New Hampshire]," Busch said.

"Each and every week, it's power to the leader. That's what we've all kind of asked for with this bigger restart zone and stuff, too, so when you are the race leader that you've earned that right to restart how you want."

Busch's great restarts probably dismayed many in what appeared to be a meager crowd with an estimate of 50,000 being generous on a sweltering Indiana summer day.

Maybe the fans knew that Busch would dominate, leaving the locals disappointed that Tony Stewart (11th) and Jeff Gordon (13th) would have good but not great days.

They would have needed a day of awesomeness to beat Busch, and it was no surprise that Busch was joined by fellow Joe Gibbs Racing drivers Matt Kenseth (second) and Denny Hamlin (fourth) in the top five. Jimmie Johnson broke up the expected Toyota parade in third.

But it definitely was a parade for much of the race. The only passes for the lead came on pit stops as the Team Penske drivers attempted to use a different pit strategy.

Drivers not from JGR talked about being a "little bit off" Sunday afternoon. They actually might have been fairly on; but the JGR strength is just at such a high that a great car can be a little bit off if it doesn't come out of the JGR stable.

"We've been working really hard to get our cars where they need to be," Johnson said. "We're still not happy, but we're getting closer."

Busch didn't just win back-to-back Brickyards, he also swept both the pole awards and the races in Xfinity and Cup -- a first in NASCAR history.

That will only be another line in an impressive resume for the 2015 Sprint Cup champion, whose four wins this year tie him for the most on the circuit with Keselowski.

What inspires Busch? His desire to go fast each and every lap.

"Every once in a while you'll see somebody that their natural tendency to drive a racetrack fits the race track," Busch crew chief Adam Stevens said. "You've seen that from [Kevin] Harvick in Atlanta at times and maybe Brad [Keselowski] at Kentucky, certainly before the repave.

"I think we're seeing it now out of KB that really what he wants to do with the car is the fastest way around. ... Since we only come here once a year, that level of feedback he's able to give us gets us in a little bit different area than I think some other guys."

A day before the Brickyard, Busch chatted with IndyCar driver Josef Newgarden in the garage. Newgarden had delivered a similar dominant performance in IndyCar last month at Iowa and while Busch wouldn't need any extra mojo, maybe he got a little bit from that chance meeting.

But unlike Newgarden, Busch did his whipping on a bigger stage. It is a stage historically known for not a lot of passing and fell right into Busch's wheelhouse Sunday as he led the most laps ever in a NASCAR race at Indianapolis.

"I've never had a dominant car like this at Indy," Busch said. "I think back to maybe having dominant cars like this elsewhere and Bristol comes to mind a few times.

"But obviously this is just a special, special day and a special car."