NASCAR Pocono preview: Kyle Busch moves past losing crew chief to 4-race suspension

Despite losing his crew chief to suspension earlier this week, Kyle Busch posted the fastest speed in qualifying and is a favorite to win on Sunday.

His crew chief is beginning to serve a four-race suspension this weekend. So too is his rear tire changer and rear tire carrier. Factor in that he’s amidst a 29-race winless streak dating to last July and it gives the appearance that not “everything is great” -- the expression Kyle Busch coined following a pit road scrap with Joey Logano earlier this season.

Yet despite crew chief Adam Stevens being back home in North Carolina, there was Busch winning the pole in qualifying Friday at Pocono Raceway, posting the fastest single lap in final practice Saturday, and well positioned to be a contender in Sunday’s Pocono 400 (3 p.m. ET, FS1).

“I think it just shows the way Adam Stevens is able to prepare his team and his cars and the work that goes on back at the shop with the guys,” Busch said. “This whole team is lined up with good personnel and Adam chooses all that.”

Busch’s current predicament stems from a pit road mishap a week ago at Dover International Speedway. After starting on the pole, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver led the opening 19 laps before a promising day unraveled when rear-tire changer Jacob Seminara didn’t switch his air wrench into the correct position. Instead of securing the five lug nuts on the left rear wheel, none were fastened. And when Busch left his pit stall, almost immediately the rear wheel rolled off the No. 18 car.

Per NASCAR’s rulebook, Stevens, Seminara and tire carrier Kenneth Barber each faced automatic minimum four-race suspensions. Tough sanctions brought about by the potential safety risks to drivers and spectators were a wheel to come off while a car was at speed.

There was some conjecture that because the No. 18 team didn’t attempt to skirt the rule requiring all 20 lug nuts to be on, NASCAR may exercise some leniency when issuing penalties on Wednesday. Ultimately, officials stuck to the letter of the law, determining that by factoring intent into a black-and-white rule it would only complicate matters down the road.

“Human error,” Busch said. “I make mistakes all the time and Adam makes mistakes all the time. We just have to live through it. That’s a big penalty and it’s unfortunate that we have to live through it. The intent of the rule wasn’t quite what transpired there, but we live and die by the rule book I guess, so the consequences are there.”

A silver lining is Stevens’ absence calls for him to miss races at Pocono, Michigan International Speedway (June 18), Sonoma Raceway (June 25), and Daytona International Speedway (July 1) — none of which host playoff races later in the year. Thus, the No. 18 team won’t fall behind at tracks that will factor into the championship. It’s one reason why JGR elected not to appeal the penalties, even though there stood a chance the penalties could’ve been reduced.

“When you look at the stretch, I think the biggest thing is we looked at none of them are [playoff] races,” Busch said. “I would have appealed because I think there was a reason to. I think there was also a reason not to with going to Pocono and Michigan, Sonoma and then Daytona.”

Losing a crew chief is certainly a body blow, but a death knell to one’s chances it is not. Instant communication and the ease with which data can be accessed remotely negates many of the disadvantages a team encounters when its leader isn’t at the track, especially when that team doesn’t lack depth with no shortage of capable fill-ins.

Witness the circumstances surrounding Kurt Busch, Kyle’s older brother, winning this race a year ago. The elder Busch brother was without crew chief Tony Gibson, who had been suspended one week due to a lug nut violation found on the No. 41 Stewart-Haas Racing car the race before. But even with engineer Johnny Klausmeier calling the shots and the race coming down to fuel strategy, Busch never missed a beat. In fact, Pocono ended up being his only victory of 2016.

Zero performance drop-off is what the younger Busch, the 2015 Monster Energy Cup Series champion, expects to replicate over the next four weeks. JGR named race engineer Ben Beshore interim crew chief.

“Adam is the reason why we are successful,” Busch said. “He puts together a game plan and we learn how to be able to go through the weekend without him. We’ve just been doing our job with Ben and the team and those guys know what to do each and every week.”

“To work as hard as we do and do what we do without (Stevens), it’s going to be fun because it is a challenge. But it’s also sad at the same time because you have to be without one of your main people.”