Billy Ballew Motorsports' Kyle Busch takes stunning Talladega win
Billy Ballew Motorsports' Kyle Busch (51) and Aric Almirola (15) move past Germain Racing's Todd Bodine on the final lap of the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Mountain Dew 250 Saturday at Talladega Superspeedway. // David Griffin, NASCAR Scene
TALLADEGA, Ala. - Billy Ballew Motorsports’ Kyle Busch finally figured out how to make the late move that proved to be a winner at the superspeedway Saturday - have a teammate help you out. Coming out of the final turn at Talladega Superspeedway, Aric Almirola stayed glued to the rear of Busch’s truck, pushing him past Germain Racing’s Todd Bodine in the closing yards of the final lap to take the victory in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Mountain Dew 250.
“Unbelievable,” Busch said. “I owe everything to Aric Almirola today.”
Busch had led when the caution came out with four laps remaining to set up a green-white-checkered finish, but Bodine, who had won the last four races at high-banked superspeedways, took the white flag with the lead.
“I was very surprised – I didn’t think we had it,” Busch said. “When Todd went through [turns] 3 and 4 with the 6 truck [of Colin Braun] pushing him, Aric was right on my back bumper a couple of inches off and we were going as fast as we could go and Todd just pulls out and gets away from the 6 and drives by both of us.
“I thought, ‘That truck was unbelievable, that’s just stupid.’ I tried to figure out the whole time around, the whole next lap, how are we going to beat this thing? It was going to come down to coming off of Turn 4 and Aric and myself getting together and going to the line.”
For team owner Billy Ballew, it was both his 300th series start and his first time to finish first and second in a Truck race.
“I wanted to finish 1-2 for Billy Ballew,” Almirola said. “With about five to go, I pushed Kyle to the lead – just the two of us by ourselves. I thought from that point forward, I could just ride in second and when it came down to one [lap] to go, I felt like I could try to make a move on Kyle to try to win the race.
“When that [late] caution came out, it kind of changed everybody’s strategy a little bit and it changed our thought process a little bit, so it didn’t work out the way I had intended. We still got a 1-2 finish for Billy, but I finished second and I so badly wanted to win my first race today. I feel like I let my team down.”
Bodine settled for third while HT Motorsports’ Terry Cook and teammate David Starr rounded out the top five. Toyota, which swept the top five, won its fourth consecutive manufacturer crown in the Truck series.
“I think we did everything about the way we had to do it,” Bodine said. “I didn’t want to be leading on the last lap. You almost would rather be on the offense than defense. I went from offense down the back straightaway to defense on the front straightaway.
“With Aric pushing him, there was just no way I was going to hold him. I wasn’t going to try to block him and wreck everybody. I think I did the right things and still ended up third. That’s plate racing. It was a great show. If it was anybody other than Aric, they wouldn’t have been smart enough to stay in line behind their teammate. He didn’t have a shot to win, so he had to do the next best thing and that was help his teammate win.”
There was one “big one” – the one that created the green-white-checkered finish. The chain-reaction accident began when ThorSport Racing’s Johnny Sauter, Germain's Max Papis and Randy Moss Motorsports’ Mike Skinner all made contact. Circle Bar Racing’s Rick Crawford took the hardest hit in the accident, and series points leader Ron Hornaday was involved as well.
Hornaday’s Kevin Harvick Inc. team made repairs to the right front of the truck and he finished 17th while the guy chasing him in the points – ThorSport’s Matt Crafton – rallied from a lap down because of a flat tire to finish 10th.
Hornaday leads Crafton by 202 points with three races left in the 2009 season. With the win, the No. 51 Billy Ballew Motorsports team closed within 100 points of the Hornaday No. 33 KHI team in the owners standings.
“I wanted to win this thing,” Hornaday said. “It’s so tough. My truck would run good with Todd and one other truck. The rest of them, it wouldn’t suck up to them. … We came down here to try to finish this race and get some points and it didn’t work out.
“We’ve got to go out and race hard now. I’m not worried about the 88 [of Crafton gaining points]. I’ve got to worry about the owners, too. We’ll race the next three races as hard as we can.”
Crafton said he didn’t know Hornaday was involved in the accident.
“It was a good day for being a lap down and coming back and doing what we did,” Crafton said. “It was a real good day. I’m not worried about the points. I’m here to win races.”
