(WOMR file photo)
This weekend, at the Texas Motor Speedway, it was the Kyle Busch Show! Ol Kylie broke out the floor broom, kicked but, and swept up on both the Nationwide and Sprint Cup races. That’s right he cleaned house in both racing series.
Busch used a late-race pit stop to overhaul Martin Truex Jr. for the lead en route to victory in the 17th annual NRA 500, Kyle’s first win at TMS in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. Twenty-four hours earlier, Busch cruised to victory over Brad Keselowski in the O’Reilly Auto Parts 300 – Kyle’s record-setting sixth Nationwide Series win on the high-banked, 1.5-mile quad-oval.
“This is awesome! It’s such an amazing feeling – I’m jacked-up,” said Busch, whose pit crew helped propel the No. 18 Interstate Batteries Toyota Camry past Truex en route to a margin of victory of 0.508-seconds. “This is cool – we’re in Victory Lane in Texas finally in the Cup Series. Man, if it wasn’t for my pit crew…we had a great race car and we worked really hard all weekend long on this car. But without that pit crew – they’re the best in the business and been the best in the business since I’ve been with them in 2008. They know when it’s crunch time.”
The late race took a turn during the night’s seventh and final caution, for debris in Turn 2, from Laps 315-318. Truex had taken the lead from Busch on Lap 290 and held it until the Speedway’s elaborate caution lights system flashed. Led by crew chief Dave Rogers, Busch’s team reeled-off a 12-second pit stop that got him out ahead of Truex, Carl Edwards, Greg Biffle and Joey Logano. When the green flag fell for the restart, that one-through-five running order did not change to the checkered flag.
Truex, whose lone Cup win was scored at Dover International Speedway on June 4, 2007, was emotionally drained post-race as his winless streak stretched to 210 consecutive races.
“When they say second sucks – second sure sucked tonight,” said Truex, driver of the Michael Waltrip Racing #56 NAPA Auto Parts Toyota. “We had a great race car. Chad (Johnston, crew chief) and the guys did a great job with the car, getting it where we needed it. We were a third or fourth-place car there for a long time. Just kept working on it. Got it to where we were the best car on the racetrack.”
Truex had failed to lead a lap in any of the season’s first six races. Saturday night, he led five times for 142 of the 334 laps – second only to the 171 laps-led by Busch and his Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota Camry.
“Just got beat out of the pits at the end,” Truex said. “Once that happens, obviously, the outside on the restarts is not where you want to be. I was lucky to hold second. Carl about got me. Just frustrating. We needed more time. We needed another stop. We needed something. Just tired of finishing second.”
Check out the unofficial results from the NRA 500.
Just as a side note, ol Kylie has won now four out of the six Nationwide races held in 2013, in his Joe Gibbs Racing #54 Monster Energy Drink Toyota Camry!
TIL NEXT TIME, I AM STILL WORKING ON MY REDNECK!
