Kyle Busch turns it into record sweep
He’s first driver to win both poles, and Xfinity, Sprint races.
Kyle Busch won the Brickyard 400 on Sunday to make it clean sweep at Indianapolis.
He led a race-record 149 of the 170 laps and beat Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Matt Kenseth to the finish line by 2.126 seconds. Jimmie Johnson was third, 2.638 seconds behind the defending Sprint Cup champ — thanks to the double overtime forced by three late crashes.
“I guess I didn’t expect it,” Busch said when asked about his dominance. “I guess I hoped it would be this way. But this Toyota was awesome today. It was so fast, and we stayed out front.”
Busch became the first NASCAR driver to sweep the Xfinity Series and Cup poles and races on the same weekend. He also joined Johnson as the only Cup drivers with back-to-back wins on Indy’ 2.5-mile oval. Johnson won in 2008 and 2009.
Tony Stewart was 11th in his final Brickyard race after being assessed a late penalty for speeding on pit road.
Five-time race winner Jeff Gordon finished 13th after coming out of retirement to replace Dale Earnhardt Jr. Earnhardt is fighting concussion-like symptoms.
“It was better than last year,” Gordon joked. “It was a fight. Wow! And I got kicked on the restarts.”
Before teams arrived in Indy Thursday night, all the talk was about Stewart’s farewell and Gordon’s comeback.
Even during the drivers’ meeting, Gordon and Stewart were front and center. Gordon delivered a moving speech in which he thanked Stewart for the impact he has made on the sport and ended with a standing ovation for the three-time Cup champ and two-time Brickyard winner. Afterward, the two drivers drove around the track together, likely for the final time on their home track.
But Busch’s domination overshadowed everything and everyone.
He surrendered the lead for 14 laps after his first pit stop, regained it when race leader Brad Keselowski pitted then gave it up again for only five laps when he made his second pit stop. Everyone else spent the day chasing Busch.
The No. 18 car was so good that Roger Penske’s drivers started the day on a different strategy. The goal was to stretch out their runs long enough that they would have to make one fewer pit stop.
It didn’t work. Logano finished seventh and Keselowski
wound up 17th.
The only real challenge for Busch came with the series of late crashes that delayed his fourth trip to victory lane.
The estimated crowd of about 50,000 left plenty of seats empty at a race that has seen attendance steadily dwindle during the past eight years. The lone exception was in 2015 — in what was supposed to be Gordon’s “final ride.”
Formula One: Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton won the Hungarian Grand Prix in Budapest for a record fifth time to take the championship lead from teammate Nico Rosberg, who finished second.
Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo was third, followed by Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen of Red Bull.
Hamilton now has five F1 victories this season for 192 points, with Rosberg at 186 and Ricciardo third with 115.
Rosberg won the first four races this year, and Hamilton has won five of the last six. Verstappen is the only non-Mercedes driver to win a race in 2016.
NHRA: John Force and Tony Schumacher raced to their first victories of the season in the Mopar MileHigh NHRA Nationals at Bandimere Speedway in Morrison, Colo.
The 67-year-old Force beat daughter Courtney in the Funny Car final between Chevy Camaros. He finished in 3.965 seconds at 319.45 mph to her run of 3.963 at 314.75. It was the 16-time season champion’s seventh victory at the track and the record-extending 144th of his career. He hadn’t won since June 2015 in New Hampshire.
Schumacher, an eight-time Top Fuel season champion, also busted a lengthy winless streak with his third victory at the track and 82nd of his career. He beat defending season champ Antron Brown in the final with a run of 3.802 at 324.28. Schumacher hadn’t won since July 2015.
Allen Johnson won in Pro Stock, and Andrew Hines in Pro Stock Motorcycle.