Kyle Busch keeps Gibbs on roll

Chris Buescher was set to keep Kyle Busch out of victory lane at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Then a late caution screwed up his strategy, and Busch found a way to win yet another Xfinity Series race at the Tennessee half-mile oval.

Buescher ran out of gas on the restart of a two-lap overtime sprint to the finish of the scheduled 300lap race. It allowed Bus- ch to sail past the leader on the restart Friday night for his eighth Xfinity victory at Bristol and 73rd overall, extending his series record.

“I just saved as much as we could, I let him go,” said Busch, whose Toyota beat Kyle Larson’s Chevrolet by 0.426 seconds. “I wasn’t sure if they were going to make it on fuel and obviously they cut it close. A little too close.”

It was Busch’s third win in six Xfinity Series starts this year, which began with a crash in the season opener at Daytona that sidelined him for 11 weeks with a broken right leg and broken left foot.

But he and Joe Gibbs Racing have been on a tear since his return: Busch starts second in tonight’s 500-lap Sprint Cup race, sandwiched between teammates Denny Hamlin on the pole and Carl Edwards as JGR tries for its 10th Cup victory of the year. Busch has four of them. Hamlin set a track record Friday in qualifying with a lap at 131.407 mph, then finished third in the Xfinity race.

Buescher’s Ford led when the race’s eighth caution fell on lap 295. It set up a green-whitecheckered finish, and Buescher, the series points leader, wound up 11th.

“I’m mad,” he said. “We were so good, we knew we were good all day.”