Busch celebrates birthday with win at Kansas Speedway

KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Kyle Busch celebrated his 36th birthday Sunday by winning a two-lap sprint to the finish at Kansas Speedway, becoming the 10th different winner through the first 11 races of the NASCAR Cup Series season.

Busch had stalked Kyle Larson all day before beating him on a late restart to take the lead. Then, after another caution in the closing laps, Busch followed up his Truck Series win Saturday night with another trip to victory lane.

“That’s a Kyle Busch win right there,” he said.

Kevin Harvick overcame a tire mishap on a late pit stop and took advantage of some chaos on the final restart to finish second. Brad Keselowski dominated the early laps before following his win at Talladega last weekend by finishing third, and Matt DiBenedetto and Chase Elliott rounded out the top five.

Kyle Larson led a racehigh 132 laps before his day ended in 19th place — and bitter disappointment.

Even after he was beaten by Busch on that late restart, he had another chance when Christopher Bell got sideways in Turn 4 to bring out another caution. But on the restart with two laps to go, Larson got trapped behind Ryan Blaney and wound up getting him sideways while trying to give him a push, taking both of them out of contention.

It was nearly a perfect afternoon for Larson’s team owner, Rick Hendrick, whose late son Ricky won his only career Truck Series race at Kansas in 2001. Just as he did at Las Vegas, Larson was driving the red, white and blue paint scheme that was nearly identical to the one that Hendrick drove 20 years ago.

Ricky Hendrick died along with nine others in a plane crash on Oct. 24, 2004, near Martinsville, Virginia.