Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Drive and win: Kyle Busch sweep is first in 25 years
FORT WORTH, TEXAS >> Four races in NASCAR’s top three series over eight days — and Kyle Busch won them all.
From Martinsville to Texas, Busch had consecutive weekend sweeps, something last done in NASCAR 25 years ago.
“I think the magic is Kyle Busch, but that’s just me,” Busch said with a smile before looking to car owner Joe Gibbs, who started laughing and told the No. 18 Toyota driver to not freak out on him.
“I’d admit I think it’s everything,” Busch then said. “You’ve got to have all the pieces of the puzzle put together, but I think more importantly we’ve got good cars, but the crew chiefs are just doing a really good job right now.”
Plus, the defending Sprint Cup champion can win races in whatever he drives. The 30-year-old Busch has already won 36 Sprint Cup races, with 80 Xfinity Series wins and 45 more in the Camping World Truck Series.
Along with his second consecutive Cup victory, taking the checkered flag just after midnight into Sunday morning, his Texas two-step included winning for the fourth time in his five Xfinity starts of 2016. His sweep at Martinsville was a truck victory and the Cup race.
“The guy is good. He’s got a great team behind him, and they put themselves in position at the end,” said Dale Earnhardt Jr., the runner-up in the first Cup night race this season. “I ain’t surprised by any means.”
The next Sprint Cup and Xfinity races are at Bristol, where Busch swept all three national series races in the same weekend in August 2010. The trucks don’t race again until May 6.
Harry Gant had consecutive weekend sweeps at Richmond and Dover in 1991, during a stretch when he won four Cup races in a row at age 51. It was Busch’s second weekend sweep at Texas, after doing it in the spring of 2013.
Busch, now the cup Series points leader, led only 34 of 334 laps in the raindelayed Duck Commander 500 on Saturday night — one lap in the middle of the race and the last 33 following a 13-car incident for the final caution.
On Lap 302, the first after the final restart, Busch went high through Turn 4 to pass Martin Truex Jr., who led six times for 141 laps before finishing sixth at the high-banked, 1 ½mile Texas track. Busch stayed ahead and went on to beat Earnhardt by nearly 4 seconds.
Truex and Austin Dillon, whose spin triggered the backstretch melee, had stayed out during a caution only a few laps before that when everyone else went to pit road to get fresh tires.
“When the race restarted for the final time we just didn’t have the grip everybody else had,” Truex said. “We were just sliding around.”
Jimmie Johnson, who had his three-race Texas winning streak snapped, finished fourth to stay second in series points. Previous points leader Kevin Harvick slid to third after a 10th-place finish.