Kyle Busch pulls away on restart to win at Richmond
RICHMOND, VA. — Kyle Busch raced to his third straight victory, celebrated, and then got yelled at by his boss.
Joe Gibbs, it seems, hadn’t seen Busch climb into the crowd to acknowledge what appeared to be friendly fans.
“Oh my gosh!” Gibbs said. “You should not do that. You run a risk.”
For Busch, though, it seemed appropriate, coming at the end of a week marked by ample discussion of his dustup with Dale Earnhardt Jr. at Richmond a decade earlier. That race, many believe, is what cemented Busch’s reputation as NASCAR’s newest on-track villain.
“It was the 10-year anniversary of you know what,” Busch said, and he could see fans wearing his gear.
On the track, Busch pulled away on a restart in a twolap overtime sprint to the finish in NASCAR’s Cup Series.
Busch, who started 32nd b ut quickly worked his way into contention, outran Chase Elliott and teammate Denny Hamlin for his fifth career victory at Richmond Raceway, the most among active drivers. The victory is his 46th overall and came from the deepest starting spot in the field of his career. It also is the deepest starting position for a winner at Richmond, surpassing Clint Bowyer, who started 31st in 2008.
The points leader also matched Kevin Harvick’s three-race winning streak from earlier in the season.
“Pats on the back, everybody,” Busch said on his radio after taking the checkered flag.
The race went more than 350 laps with the only cautions coming after stages one and two, both won by defending race champion Joey Logano, who finished fourth. It remained clean until Ryan Blaney and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. crashed on Lap 353, bringing out the first on-track yellow.
Busch took the lead after the next caution, brought out by the smoking car of Ryan Newman, when he was running second to Truex heading onto pit road and got out first. He also beat Hamlin and Harvick off the line on a restart with six to go, and then never let anyone contend when the race went back to green for the final time on lap 400.
‘The pit crew tonight, they won this race for us,” Busch said. “They got us off pit road first those last two times and got us where we needed to be.”
The three-race winning streak is the second of his career. The first came in 2015, when he won his only championship.
The end was a bitter pill for Truex, who ran up front all night. He and Busch were dueling after a restart with 23 laps to go, and after Busch pulled away, Truex seemed to be closing ground until a spin by David Ragan brought out the yellow. All the front-runners pitted, and while Truex’s team struggled mightily in the No. 1 pit stall, Truex could only watch as contender after contender beat him off pit road. He lost at least seven spots by the time NASCAR had sorted out the next restart starting order.
It marked the 75th time Truex has raced on a short track in NASCAR’s premier series, and he dropped to 0 for 75 on short tracks for his career.
Hometown Ham l in: Denny Hamlin was dejected after Friday’s practice sessions, saying his car was missing the mark badly. But he rallied in qualifying, earning the fourth starting spot, and rallied again in the race for the third-place finish.