Power Rankings: By staying on track, No. 1 Busch could have won again

Updated June 30

It could have been, maybe even should have been, a different Busch in Victory Lane on Sunday.

Kyle Busch runs into trouble as Juan Pablo Montoya spins him out during a regrettable late pit stop. (Getty Images)

Though it had been a rare off weekend for points leader Kyle Busch, who has already ripped off five Cup victories, a sixth had seemingly fallen into his lap Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway when the caution waved on Lap 273. While everybody in front of him needed to pit for fuel to reach the end of the race, crew chief Steve Addington had used a strategy earlier that had Busch good to go to the finish of the 301-lap event.

Inexplicably, Busch opted to pit as well.

"If we would have stayed out there then we could have won the race -- we could have been where the 2 (Kurt Busch) car was," Kyle Busch said. "I didn't feel like that was the way to win a race, just to stay out and play by the rain."

Considering how much track position meant Sunday -- and all season for that matter -- the move was dumbfounding, to say the least. His car was junk most of the day, so two tires weren't going to help him move forward a whole lot back in traffic -- and certainly not into the position he most likely would have finished in had he not pitted.

Well back in the pack after his pit stop, he got into a scrum with Juan Pablo Montoya, who sent him spinning as the final caution of the day waved, and he finished 25th after the race was halted on Lap 284.

"I didn't feel like we had a shot with the guys that were going to be behind us," Kyle Busch said of his reason for stopping. "We did what we did to try to pass some more cars."

Older brother Kurt was more than happy to snag the rain-shortened victory in what has otherwise been a rather dreary season. What's more is, had the race restarted, he might have been in big trouble; a brake hose had come loose.

"You know, I learned early on, before I even really made it up to the Cup level, that luck is definitely a player in racing," said Kurt Busch, who ended a 29-race winless skid.

"I think Richard Childress defined luck the best. He says, 'When preparation meets opportunity, that's luck.' And we were prepared today, and the opportunity presented itself to pit when we did. You have to have a fast enough car, a prepared car. So things came into play for us.

"It's something that's always been in the game. You've got to have strategy. You have to have a fast car. Where we are in points, we've got our backs up against the wall. So we gambled a little bit and it paid off."

Power Rankings after New Hampshire: