Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Kyle Busch benefits from clean air for All-Star win
CONCORD, N.C. — The All-Star race showed Kyle Larson is the likely favorite for the Coca-Cola 600.
It also showed that the best car doesn’t always win, and the winner will likely be aided by a heavy dose of clean air.
Translation? NASCAR’s longest race could be an epic snoozer. That’s saying a lot after Martin Truex Jr. last year led all but eight of the 400 laps.
Saturday night’s annual All-Star race gave little hope of the 600 rising to some epic event that will be talked about for years. At Charlotte Motor Speedway, the leader uses the clean air in front of him to drive away from the field. Passing is difficult at the front.
“You can’t pass anywhere,” said Ryan Blaney. “It’s not great track conditions, to be honest with you.”
Blaney raced his way into the All-Star race by winning a segment in an earlier qualifying event. He then tried to open the race with an optional set of soft tires to gain track position. That didn’t really work. Then he tried a two-tire pit stop that briefly cycled him into the lead. But that didn’t work, either.
For 40 laps over two segments, no one had anything at all for Larson. He led flag to flag in each of the two segments, and in theory should have won the race. He was the leader heading into the final pit stops, but a slow stop sent him back to the track in fourth.
The $1 million prize was going to one of 10 drivers who won a 10-lap sprint to the finish. So whichever driver took the lead on the restart would churn through that clean air all the way to victory lane.
Larson didn’t get a shot because of the slow stop.
“I think we had the car to be the winner,” he said.
The win instead went to Kyle Busch, his first in a Cup car at Charlotte. It was his first in the All-Star race, and ended more than a decade of frustration at the local track. Busch had eight wins in the Xfinity Series, seven in the Truck Series, including Friday night’s race.
To finally get an All-Star win, he had to be bold on the final restart and dive his car deep to the bottom of the track for a three-wide pass of Jimmie Johnson and Brad Keselowski. Busch made the pass stick then took off sailing. No one could catch him once he was in the clean air.
“I could have just sat there in the line, I could have pushed Brad, faded in the corner, watched the outside lane go by,” Busch said. “You’ve kind of got to do what you’ve got to do. Maybe it’s not one of the top five moments, but top 10 maybe, 15 probably.
“Once I got that opportunity to get there, I knew it was going to be now or never. Take advantage of the opportunity when it presented itself.”