Kyle Busch: Driver, No. 51 Cessna Toyota | Homestead Preview

NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series Overview

Event: Baptist Health 200, Race 5 of 23, 134 Laps – 30/30/74; 201 Miles

Location: Homestead-Miami (Fla.) Speedway (1.5-mile oval)

Date/Broadcast: June 13, 2020 at 7:30 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR 90

What You Need to Know

• Owner-driver Kyle Busch returns to the Cessna Tundra for his fourth of five NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Series starts this season. The reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion won his first Truck Series start of the year in March at Las Vegas (Nev.) Motor Speedway and followed that up with a runner-up finish at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway in May. In his most recent outing, he won the first two stages at Atlanta (Ga.) Motor Speedway, but was relegated to a 21st-place finish after being issued a pair of pit road speed penalties and suffering a flat tire after making contact with the wall making an evasive maneuver to avoid another competitor spinning in front of him.
• Busch leads the Gander Trucks in stage wins (four), laps led (170) and fastest laps run (135) this season.
• Due to restrictions limiting NASCAR Cup Series driver’s participation late in the season in the lower series, the Las Vegas native hasn’t raced at Homestead-Miami Speedway in the Gander Trucks since 2014. In the 2014 event, he finished fourth, but clinched what was then Kyle Busch Motorsports’ third owner’s championship. Busch clinched an owner’s championship in KBM’s inaugural season leading a race-high 57 laps en route to victory in the 2010 event and also capped a remarkable comeback in points with a victory in the 2013 event to claim the team’s second owner’s championship. In eight starts at the Florida track in NASCAR’s third division, he has two wins, 312 laps led, six top-five and seven top-10 finishes resulting in an average finish of 4.1.
• Busch has also been victorious twice at Homestead-Miami in the Cup Series, his championship seasons of 2015 and 2019, and produced two victories there in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, including in 2009 when he captured that series’ championship.
• “Rowdy” ranks first all-time among Truck Series drivers in wins (57) and average finish (6.9) and second in laps led (7,151). He has won a remarkable 37.3% (57/153) of the Gander Trucks races he has entered and finished first or second in 54.9% (84/153).
• The No. 51 team leads the owner point standings by 15 points over the No. 16 team after four events. So far this season the team has one win, one pole, two top-five and two top-10 finishes resulting in an average finish of 9.0. Busch captured the victory at Las Vegas, while Riley Herbst captured the pole in the season-opening event at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway. The team leads the Gander Trucks Series with five Stage Wins this season, four with Busch and one with Herbst.
• Veteran crew chief Danny Stockman leads the No. 51 team in 2020. Stockman called the shots for Austin Dillon’s championship efforts in both the NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series (2011) and the NASCAR Xfinity Series (2013) and has experience as a crew chief in all three national series. In Dillon’s Gander Trucks championship season, the pair totaled two wins, five poles, 10 top-five and 16 top-10 finishes. The majority of Stockman’s experience atop the pit box has come in the Xfinity Series, where his drivers have recorded seven wins, 19 poles, 80 top-five and 148 top-10 finishes across 209 starts from 2012 to 2018.
• At Homestead-Miami Speedway, Stockman’s drivers have two Truck Series starts, with a best result of 10^th coming with Austin Dillon in the 2010 event. His drivers had three top-five finishes in five Xfinity Series starts and he also earned an eighth-place finish in the Cup Series with Dillon in 2019.
• Brandon Jones will make his first Gander Trucks start of 2020 behind the wheel of the No. 51 DuPont Air Filters Tundra in the series’ next stop at Pocono (Pa.) Raceway on June 27.
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Kyle Busch, Driver Q&A

Are you looking forward to racing at Homestead-Miami in the Truck Series this weekend?

“I’m really looking forward to racing in the Truck Series at Homestead this weekend. With the rules changes in the Truck Series in recent years limiting cup driver’s eligibility and Homestead being the final race of the season, I haven’t been able to compete at that track in the trucks since 2014. It’ll be a little bit different this time around in – since I started my own team in 2010 most years there was an owner’s championship on the line with Homestead being the final race of the season and it was the old points’ system, so you had to keep that in mind in how you raced with those championships being important to us at KBM and important to Toyota. There were a few years where you were protecting a lead in the final race and then there was 2013 where we thought we were basically out of it, but the 88 had a bad race and we were able to lead a bunch of laps and win. The points ended in a tie, but we won the championship via the tie breaker because we had more wins on the season. Just a lot of great memories at Homestead with bringing home championships, both as a driver and an owner, and it’ll definitely feel a lot different going there this weekend and the only thing on the line is the trophy for winning the race. Hopefully we can go out and execute and at the end of the night put the Cessna Tundra in victory lane.”

Kyle Busch Career Highlights

• Busch has a total of 153 NGROTS starts and is ranked first in NGROTS wins (57), second in laps led (7,151) and fourth in poles (22). Busch has a total of 100 top-five and 121 top-10 finishes with an average start of 7.2 and an average finish of 6.9.
• The 35-year-old driver has won 37.3% (57/153) of the NGROTS races he has entered and finished first or second in 54.9% (84/153).
• Busch stands alone as the leader in all-time career wins in NASCAR’s national touring series with 210 total victories. He has earned 56 NASCAR Cup Series wins, 97 NASCAR XFINITY Series wins, and 57 NGROTS wins.
• In August of 2010, Busch made history when he won the NGROTS, NXS and NCS races at Bristol Motor Speedway, becoming the only driver to sweep all three of NASCAR’s top three series at one track on the same weekend. He then repeated the feat in August of 2017.
• Busch has won at least once at every active NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors venue that he’s made a start at.

Kyle Busch’s No. 51 Cessna Tundra:

KBM-063: The No. 51 Cessna team will race KBM-063 for Saturday’s Baptist Health 200. The Tundra has just one start, a third-place finish with Christian Eckes in the 2019 Gander Trucks series finale at Homestead-Miami (Fla.) Speedway.

KBM Notes of Interest

• KBM drivers have collected four wins, one pole, 317 laps led, 10 top-five and 14 top-10 finishes resulting in an average finish of 10.3 across 26 starts at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
• Owner-driver Kyle Busch has two victories at Homestead-Miami (2010 and 2013), while Darrell Wallace Jr. (2014) and William Byron (2016) each have one.
• KBM holds the NGROTS records for most career wins (76) and most wins in a single season (14 in 2014). In addition to collecting a series-record seven Owner’s Championships, the organization has produced two championship-winning drivers; Erik Jones (2015) and Christopher Bell (2017).