Kyle Busch cruises to his first XFINITY Series win at Kentucky
Kyle Busch won the Alsco 300 NASCAR XFINITY Series race at Kentucky Speedway on Friday night, dominating the event pretty much from start to finish.
Busch started from the pole and led the first 153 laps without many serious challenges mounted from his fellow competitors.
He then withstood late charges from his two Joe Gibbs Racing teammates, Erik Jones and Daniel Suarez, as well as Austin Dillon of Richard Childress Racing before finally securing yet another victory in the series where Busch is the all-time leader in wins.
"Everything was really good about this race car since we unloaded," Busch said.
It was, however, Busch's first XFINITY victory at the 1.5-mile Kentucky Speedway, where he has won twice each in the Sprint Cup and Camping World Truck Series.
To win this time, Busch had to hold off first Jones and then also Dillon and Suarez second.
The final chance for Dillon and Suarez came when the No. 74 car of Mike Harmon appeared to lose an engine and dropped oil on the track, bringing out the fifth caution of the night with five laps to go and setting up the green-white-checkered finish.
On the ensuing restart, Dillon slipped to the inside of Suarez to move into second and briefly for a brief second or two even surged ahead of Busch. But then Busch surged ahead for good and held on for the win.
"(Dillon) just made a bold move, an aggressive move, getting down low like that," Busch said.
Jones, meanwhile, had passed Busch on the high side with an impressive move between Turns 3 and 4 just before a spin by Ray Black Jr. brought out the fourth caution of the night with 25 laps to go.
But then Jones made a costly mistake. After appearing to shut his engine off in an apparent effort to save fuel, Jones was slow to get it re-fired and failed to maintain a reasonable pace with the pace car -- allowing both Busch and Austin Dillon, who had been in third, to move ahead of him before the ensuing restart, per NASCAR rules.
Jones was upset afterward after finishing fourth, even though his team came over the radio at the time of the incident and explained to him that he had broken a rule by failing to keep pace. He also said he did not shut his engine off intentionally to save fuel, but instead "hit a wrong button."
"I don't know. I fell back 20 feet from the pace car, no different than if you're saving fuel -- and they put me to third place," Jones said. "So I guess I gave it away. It's very unfortunate."
Earlier, Ty Dillon, Austin's younger brother, stayed out on older tires and led a total of six laps when Busch made a pit stop at the end of a 112-lap green-flag run. But that was a mirage.
As soon as Dillon pitted at the end of his fuel window, Busch cycled right back into the lead on Lap 160.
Making matters worse for Dillon, he was penalized for speeding while leaving pit road on his green-flag stop. He ended up finishing seventh.
Busch, meanwhile, went on to set yet another series record by winning his fourth consecutive XFINITY race on a 1.5-mile track. Busch led 185 of 201 laps overall in the race, the first for the series since the Kentucky track underwent a reconfiguration and repaving facelift.
"It was a new repave and it probably was not one of the best races from the visual," Busch admitted. "There were a couple of odd things happening at the end there. Jones got me on that restart and then he fell back when his motor wouldn't fire, trying to restart it there.
"But on that last restart (with Dillon and Suarez), I was thinking we were three-wide and I don't know how we're all going to get through here. ... It was enough excitement from my standpoint."
Rounding out the top five behind Busch, Dillon, Suarez and Jones was Darrell "Bubba" Wallace, who drives the No. 6 Ford for Roush Fenway Racing.
There are only 10 races left in the XFINITY regular season before the first seven-race Chase in the history of the series commences at this same Kentucky Speedway on Sept. 24.
