Kurt Busch takes Jordan Brand to victory lane at Kansas

Kurt Busch was slowly driving his Jordan Brand-styled ride toward victory lane at Kansas Speedway on Sunday when car owner Denny Hamlin stopped him in his tracks, ducked his head through the window and said: “We did it.” Did they ever. Busch survived a weary day of tire attrition, then pinched his way past Kyle Larson for the lead with eight laps to go, before driving away from the reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion to win for the first time at Kansas — and give the up-and-coming 23XI Racing team owned by Hamlin and NBA great Michael Jordan its second win ever.

“That’s the most gratifying part, helping these guys win,” Busch said. “It’s all about team work. I don’t do this alone.”

Larson had the dominant car, riding the top line around the mile-and-a-half oval, but Busch was able to put his Toyota just about anywhere he wanted. That paid off when the two were sideby-side with eight to go and Busch squeezed by Larson, who brushed the wall and lost just enough momentum to surrender the lead — and the win.

Busch pulled his No. 45 car — one of the numbers that Jordan wore during his career — to a stop at the start-finish line and climbed out the window before

throwing his arms up in triumph, the familiar Jumpman logo splashed across his fire suit.

It was the second win for 23XI after Bubba Wallace triumphed last year at Talladega, and it came at the most unexpected of times; neither of the team’s drivers had finished in the top 10 this season.

“You know, we as an organization kind of let these guys down — I’m talking about Bubba and Kurt, all the mistakes we’d made on pit road and whatnot,” Hamlin said. “But lets talk about the positives. I can’t thank Kurt enough. The Jordan Brand’s first race, so jealous he gets to drive that car, and then to have that thing so fast there, yeah, it’s just — I’ve never had this kind of feeling, even for a win for me, much less when I didn’t win. It’s different.”

There were no hard feelings about the way Busch raced to the finish, either.

“He never got into me. I’m trying to squeeze throttle to get position on him and just got tight,” Larson said. “That was fun racing with Kurt the last half of the race. I was trying hard the whole time.”

No kidding. At one point with 85 to go, Larson went nearly sideways while racing with Busch for the lead off Turn 2.

“Just hard racing for the win,” Larson said. “I was struggling in traffic a little bit, he was able to get by and from there. I just wanted to hold onto second. Just fought really hard today.”

One of the dominant storylines early in the week was how tires would fare under the Next Gen car during its Kansas debut, especially after several drivers — including Joey Logano — had problems with their rear going down in practice.

The problems began again during Sunday’s second stage.

William Byron, who was bumped out of the way by Logano in last week’s contentious finish at Darlington, was running near the front when his tire went away. Just as Byron limped down pit road, outside pole sitter Tyler Reddick had a rear go down and touched the wall. Martin Truex Jr. had the same tire problem on the stage’s final lap.