Kyle Busch keeps on truckin', wins NCWTS 250 at Martinsville
Kyle Busch keeps checking boxes off his list of career achievements this NASCAR season.
He did it again Saturday, winning for the first time ever at Martinsville Speedway by capturing the caution-filled Camping World Truck Series race.
"This is a day we've been looking for for a long, long time," Busch said. "We just haven't necessarily had all the pieces go together like they should have.
"I didn't know that all the pieces were going to go together today, either, the way all those cautions were playing out, the way the tire strategy was playing out, when to pit or when not to pit. ... (Crew chief) Wes (Ward) and I kind of just leaned on each other, and we both had no idea, so I think we just kind of dumbed into this, I think. But it all worked out."
It was the first time this season Busch has entered a Truck Series event, as he earned his 45th series victory. The defending NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion now has won 15 of the last 26 Truck starts he's made, dating back to 2013.
Until Saturday's NCWTS 250, however, Busch had been 0-for-8 in Truck Series starts at Martinsville, the .526-mile Virginia short track.
On a day when there were 12 cautions, including one that brought out a second red flag with just four laps to go, Busch survived all the carnage mostly by making sure he stayed out front. He led a race-high 123 laps.
The final multi-car wreck came with Busch comfortably in front of John Hunter Nemechek and William Byron -- bunching up the field for one final restart, technically a green-white-checkered finish.
But Busch pulled away from Nemechek and the rest of the field and finally secured the victory in his No. 18 Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota. He did so despite running the final 120 laps of the 255-lap event on the same set of tires.
"The couple of adjustments that Wes made on pit road were really good for us," Busch said. "This Tundra was just awesome."
Nemechek finished second, followed by Byron, Kyle Larson and Timothy Peters. Larson led 79 laps, second only to Busch.
"We were on older tires than he was," Nemechek said of Busch, after being left behind on the final restart. "We had one set of stickers laying in the pits. We were hoping for a caution where everyone would pit, but we had to stay out for track position."
Pole-sitter Ben Rhodes, who nudged Busch out of the way to take the lead on Lap 3, led a total of 43 laps but faded to 16th by the finish.
In addition to having never won in the Truck Series at Martinsville before Saturday, Busch is 0-for-21 in his career in Sprint Cup starts at the track and 0-for-1 in the XFINITY Series.
"It's neat to win here at Martinsville," said Busch, who will start seventh in Sunday's STP 500 Sprint Cup race in an effort to get to Victory Lane again at the track.
