Kyle Busch leads lap that counts.
LONG POND, Pa. Kyle Busch watched the number of laps he’s led this season tick, tick, tick as it crossed 1,000, and he only really cared about the lap he hadn’t led: the last one.
“We’ve had speed. We’ve been right there,” Busch said. “We’ve been able to do what we should be doing, and that’s running up front.”
For all that time up front, Busch also had the longest losing streak of his career, a rare recession over his time building a résumé even NASCAR Hall of Famers would envy, with the 2015 Cup championship, 176 wins over three series and an elite ride for Joe Gibbs Racing.
He can add two more feats to the list — 13 straight years with a Cup win and his first checkered flag at Pocono.
Busch used a bumpand-run on Kevin Harvick to take the lead with 16 laps left and held on to snap a 36-race losing streak and win the NASCAR Overton’s 400 at Pocono Raceway on Sunday.
“I never thought this day would happen,” Busch said.
Busch won from the pole and gave Toyota its 100th Cup win since its 2007 debut. Busch had Toyota’s first Cup win in March 2008 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
Busch had never gone a full season without winning a race. Charlotte Motor Speedway is now the only track where he’s failed to win a Cup points race.
“I wasn’t sure which one was going to be last,” he said.
Busch had seven topfive finishes this season and was runner-up to Austin Dillon in the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte.
Harvick finished second, followed by Martin Truex Jr., Denny Hamlin and Brad Keselowski. Harvick, who hasn’t won in 34 career races at Pocono, said he had nothing for Busch down the stretch.
“There was no battle. He was way faster than we were,” Harvick said.
Crew chief Adam Stevens made the right calls a week after his confrontation on pit road with members of Truex’s team. JGR suspended two of Truex’s tire changers because of the profane outburst at the Brickyard. JGR provides the pit crew for Furniture Row Racing.
An eight-car wreck on the first lap knocked Aric Almirola and Matt DiBenedetto out of the race. Matt Kenseth spun to trigger the accident.
Almirola missed two months with a fractured vertebra suffered at Kansas.
“Sort of a bummer not to even make a whole lap,” he said.
Kenseth, the 2003 series champion from Cambridge, Wis., finished ninth and Eau Claire’s Paul Menard was 19th.