Friday's race big for the Toyota camp

There is no Sprint Cup Series championship in the cards for Kyle Busch this season, but he still has the opportunity to win his first NASCAR championship.

Entering Friday night's Dollar General 300 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway, Busch holds a 155-point advantage over Carl Edwards in the Nationwide Series standings.

Busch, 24, would need to hold off Carl Edwards and Brad Keselowski over the final five races to secure the championship, which would be his first in NASCAR’s three national series.

Others would share in the accomplishment.

It would mark the first driver’s championship in Nationwide for Joe Gibbs Racing and – barring an unlikely rebound by Denny Hamlin or Brian Vickers in the Chase – the first driver’s championship for Toyota since it joined Nationwide and Cup competition in 2007.

“It would be big,” Busch said. "Of course, it would mean a lot to me.

“I haven’t won a championship since 1999 when I was racing Legends cars. It’s big to win any NASCAR championship, no matter what division it is.”

Since JGR moved to Toyota last season, its Nationwide program has been nearly unstoppable.

Busch won 10 series races last season – nine driving for JGR. Joey Logano won one for the organization and Denny Hamlin added four more. And JGR’s No. 18 team won the series’ car owner championship.

This season, JGR fielded Busch full time in an effort to win a driver’s title and, so far, Busch remains on track.

“It would be a huge deal,” said J.D. Gibbs, the Gibbs team president.

"We’ve been doing this a long time. We got the owner’s title last year and to have the driver’s one would be a real feather in our cap.

“Our guys have done a great job putting this program together and it’s a big investment.”

So far this season, Busch has six Nationwide wins, his most recent coming July 18 at Gateway International Speedway near St. Louis. He’s finished second 10 times – four times to Logano, his JGR teammate.

Busch led by 245 points entering last weekend’s race at Auto Club Speedway, but Denny Hamlin wrecked while substituting for Busch in the race and finished 31st. Busch suffered from the flu last weekend and was forced to get out of his car early in both the Nationwide and Cup races.

“We’ve still got a pretty good lead, but we need to run strong in the final five races,” Busch said.

“They’re not going to roll over and give it to us.”

Officials with Toyota are also being cautious.

“I wish it were a done deal. There’s quite a bit of racing left,” said Lee White, president and general manager of Toyota Racing Development.

White said a Nationwide driver’s title would continue a strong progression in the manufacturer’s involvement in NASCAR, that has included a Truck series driver’s title and car owner and manufacturer championships in Nationwide.

"It’s about the drivers, and we aspire to hitch our wagon to their star and reflect off their glory,” White said. “With his success last year in all three series, Kyle very quickly became the face of Toyota.

“I’m assured by our marketing people, that should Kyle win, they are going to play it up; they are going to do a lot with it. It will be big.”

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