Busch led the field for 52 of the race’s final 53 laps to take the checkered flag. The MENCS victory was the 49th of his career and tied Busch with Tony Stewart.
“That’s awesome and you keep reaching higher up the ladder and you keep reaching milestone drivers and Tony Stewart is one of the all-time best and one of the drivers that I was a fan of as well growing up so it’s awesome to be able to tie him,” said Busch. “There are many more that we want to keep tying and getting higher than, but Tony’s a great friend and it’s pretty cool to be able to get that. What’s crazy is how this year keeps going you know – it’s like Harvick gets one, we get one, (Martin) Truex (Jr.) gets one and we’re all back and forth. We answered the point here this weekend without having the fastest car and that’s what matters.”
The triumph was the seventh in the last nine races for Toyota, as well as the manufacturer’s 11th victory in 21 events this season. The win was the sixth for Busch in 2018.
Busch also won the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Pocono on Saturday to record a weekend sweep at the track. In addition, Toyota driver Christopher Bell was victorious at Iowa Speedway on Saturday to give the manufacturer a sweep of all three NASCAR national series races over the weekend
Camry driver Daniel Suárez finished second to record his career-best finish. He led the field three times for 29 circuits after starting from the pole.
“I thought I was a little better than Kyle (Busch) and the 18 guys with new tires with five, seven laps or so, but in the longer runs he was better than me,” said the driver from Monterrey, Mexico. “He was just turning better for whatever reason. I was getting too tight and I was trying to adjust my tools as much as I can to free the car up a little bit, but it wasn’t helping the rotation – what I needed – and every restart I felt like I was decent, but, no, not great. I felt like if I was able to complete the pass by corner one I was going to be able to hold him off, but I just never had the help from behind”
Camry driver Erik Jones (fifth) and Denny Hamlin (10th) also tallied top-10 results in Pocono. Jones led the field for 11 laps (of 160), while Hamlin paced five circuits.
“I was – (Daniel) Suárez , I just can’t say enough about my teammate. What an awesome race. He was probably the third-best car – (Kevin) Harvick was the best car and we were the second-best car and then Suárez was the third-best car. He gave us a run for our money there on those last couple restarts. The last one I spun my tires a little too much and he got a really good run and I think that gave (Erik) Jones an opportunity to make it three-wide down into one and those guys got to racing and just kind of let me get away. Just can’t say enough about Adam Stevens (crew chief) and all my guys. This Caramel Toyota Camry was awesome and had a lot of speed, but we fought it all weekend. Glad to get here and glad to get another win for all the Rowdy Nation fans out there and everybody here at Pocono. We swept the weekend and taking home both eagle trophies this week.” – Kyle Busch, No. 18 M&M’s Caramel Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
“Definitely helps a lot to have this kind of performance from my race team because as you know, we’ve been struggling lately – the last couple months or so – but very proud of my guys. Like I said on the radio today, second place is good, but I didn’t care if we were second, third or fifth, I really wanted to win. We needed that win, but, you know, that’s part of racing. We will get it one day.” – Daniel Suarez, No. 19 STANLEY, Joe Gibbs Racing
“Yeah, track position a lot of it, you know? I think the 18 (Kyle Busch) was a little better than us, but overall we took a shot at it at the end going three-wide and it just didn’t quite work out. We just couldn’t get clear, so we had a good car. We had probably the second or third-best car I thought. Daniel (Suárez) and I were pretty similar. Daniel was just a little bit ahead of us on track positon all day, so the Reser’s Camry was good. Just not quite where the 18 was and especially not the 4 (Kevin Harvick) was – he was very fast.” – Erik Jones, No, 20 Reser’s Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing