Kyle Busch pulls off Texas two-step by winning Nationwide race
Joe Gibbs Racing's Kyle Busch won his eighth race of the season in Saturday's NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Texas Motor Speedway. // David Griffin, NASCAR Scene
Related story: Nationwide penalty likely for opening-day violation by Kyle Busch team
FORT WORTH, Texas – The series which once shared a name with driver Kyle Busch continues to be his personal playground.
Busch won yet another Nationwide Series race on a pleasant Saturday afternoon at Texas Motor Speedway, all but wrapping up the first NASCAR championship for the Joe Gibbs Racing driver.
The O’Reilly Challenge served as Busch’s eighth Nationwide win of the season, and he expanded his points lead to 272 over rival Carl Edwards with just two races remaining. All Busch needs to do is finish 15th or better next week to clinch one race early.
Driving a WWE “Raw”-themed car, Busch put the smackdown on the field all race long. He led 179 of the 200 laps and was rarely challenged, even when a few late cautions bunched the field.
Busch pulled away on a final restart with just over a dozen laps to go and drove to victory lane for the second time in as many days after winning the Camping World Truck Series race on Friday night.
It was his fourth consecutive Nationwide Series victory in Texas.
“Awesome job guys! Way to put together a race car,” Busch said over the team radio. “Four in a row at Texas, baby! Woo woo!"
Later, in victory lane, he clutched a championship belt the WWE had given him before the race and said, “We out-wrestled them today.”
In addition to his eight wins this year, Busch has also finished second a whopping 11 times this season – often to JGR teammate Joey Logano, who was driving the other half of the WWE paint scheme.
But Logano never showed he had a top-five car and wrecked with 47 laps to go.
When Busch stayed out on the final pit stop, along with nine other cars, it put enough distance between he and the drivers with fresh tires that he was largely unchallenged.
Casey Mears, subbing for Jeff Burton, finished second when he stayed out to gain track position.
Burton had hit the wall during Sprint Cup practice, so team owner Richard Childress elected to have Mears replace him.
“Fortunately I was the guy that could fit in the seat,” Mears said. “I had a lot of fun and it was definitely a surprise.”
Jason Leffler finished third, his eighth top-five finish of the year.
Busch said he planned on having his “championship celebration” at Phoenix next week. Edwards didn’t concede the title, but didn’t sound too optimistic, either.
“Well, you know, it ain’t over until it’s over,” Edwards said, “but they look pretty good.”
