A few years ago, the lack of reliability of Joe Gibbs Racing's cars struck Kyle Busch, and his Chase was a disaster from the start.
This year, after a strong start, its also catching up with Denny Hamlin -- who was threatening to win the title, but now is doomed to lose it barring a miracle over the next few weeks.
JGR is an elite team, they win races all the time in Cup and Nationwide and are a strong organization. But come Chase time, they struggle.

And even though Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin are among the best drivers in Cup, they will not win a title at JGR until this reliability issue is solved.



Almirola leads Ford brigade at Martinsville
When you think of the Ford racers in NASCAR, you think of Greg Biffle, Carl Edwards -- you don't think of Aric Almirola.
But the driver of the 43 car had a great Sunday, finishing 4th at Martinsville.

Needless to say, Almirola was quite pleased with his day.
“That was a good run for us.  Todd Parrott made a gutsy call there.  We were horrible at the beginning of this race and I mean horrible.  I don’t know how we didn’t go several laps down, but we fought hard all day.  We fought for every position.  We made all kinds of adjustments on this Ford Fusion all day and Todd Parrott made a great call there to take two tires at the end to get us some track position and it took off.  I was really surprised at how fast it went on two tires, so I’m proud of everybody on this Gwaltney Ford Fusion.  They worked really hard and we deserved this one.” 

He said he likes racing at the paper clip at Martinsville.
“I don’t know.  I grew up short track racing and I’ve raced in Late Models here, but I don’t know.  I love this place, but I didn’t feel like I belonged on the race track the first 200 laps of the race, but these guys worked their guts out. They never give up.”