As a Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, Carl Edwards has had an up close view of Kyle Busch's recent run that's seen him win four of the past five NASCAR national division races and accomplish a pair of weekend sweeps.
When a driver can seemingly do no wrong, things repeatedly work in your favor and the wins continually add up, is a feeling Edwards describes as wanting to "bottle that up and figure out how to recreate it because it's really fun."
Yet while Edwards can relate to what Busch is currently experiencing and see firsthand the chassis setups, tire pressures and other mechanical elements employed on the No. 18 car, what he cannot do is pinpoint the exact reason for his teammate's dominance.
"The good part about Kyle's success now is that I'm on his team so I can see what he's doing," Edwards said Friday at Bristol Motor Speedway. "I can talk to him about it, but I don't know that there's a specific thing you do.
"Understanding the setups and driving styles and being able to talk to people about how they approach the race is definitely helpful, but everyone does things differently. The coolest part for me is to see that this can be done right now out of this shop with these cars and (Toyota) engines. That's the best thing you can have, is someone out there setting the bar. That's great."
Busch's streak began April 2 when he won the truck race at Martinsville Speedway, then the following day captured the Cup event. The subsequent weekend he took both the Xfinity Series and Cup races at Texas Motor Speedway.
The consecutive trips to Victory Lane came to a halt when Busch finished a close second to Erik Jones in Saturday's Xfinity race. But having qualified fifth and with 17 combined victories across NASCAR's three national tours, Busch is confident in continuing his streak of Cup wins in Sunday's Food City 500.
"Certainly I think that circumstances are going our way maybe a little bit more," Busch said. "Why, I'm not sure, I've just had some really fast race cars. It feels good and when times are good, things seem easy of course so we'd like to keep it that way."
Busch's stiffest competition Sunday should be quite familiar to the defending Cup champion -- it's his three teammates Edwards, Matt Kenseth and Denny Hamlin. Edwards starts on the pole, Kenseth will be alongside on the front row, Hamlin is fourth, and Martin Truex Jr. -- whose Furniture Row Racing team is closely affiliated with JGR, making him a de facto teammate of Busch's -- lines up eighth.
In all three practice sessions the five drivers flashed speed over short- and long-runs with Hamlin posting the fastest single lap in the first and third rounds, and with Busch quickest in the second.
"We've had really fast race cars since about this time last year," Kenseth said. "Thankfully, it's carried into this season with this (aerodynamic rules) package. We haven't had all the results, but as an organization and as a group, Martin included, all five cars have been really, really fast. If one of us misses it a little bit then another one is right up there in the mix to win. That's always really encouraging."
But as it so often does as of late, everything circles back to Busch, who enters Bristol leading the series in top fives, laps led and average finish and is tied with Jimmie Johnson in wins through seven races. Another strong result seems probable Sunday.
"I feel like we can go and have a legitimate chance to win each and every week," Busch said, "which is probably the first time in my career that I've had that, so it's pretty good."