For truck race winner Kyle Busch, it’s 1 down, 2 to go

Posted Saturday, Nov. 07, 2009 Comments   (0) Print Share Share Reprints
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By CARLOS MENDEZ

cmendez@star-telegram.com

If Kyle Busch is going to go for a sweep of the three races at Texas Motor Speedway this weekend, he hurdled his first major obstacle Friday night.

He got past Ron Hornaday.

Busch powered into the lead with 50 laps to go with an aggressive move to the top of the track, shooting past points leader Hornaday’s No. 33 Chevrolet, and he kept the lead to win his fifth consecutive NASCAR Camping World Trucks Series start.

With Hornaday tucked away in third place, Busch held off Matt Crafton over the final laps of the WinStar World Casino 350 before 63,500 at TMS.

It was Busch’s first trucks victory at Texas, adding to three Nationwide victories he has posted here. It was the right start to his quest for a 3-for-3 weekend on the same track, which no one has done in NASCAR.

Busch had no trouble soaking in the meaning of the victory.

"It was an accomplishment to beat the 33 bunch here," he said. "We knew we were going to have to beat the 33. We know they’re the toughest ones here."

Busch will start sixth in today’s O’Reilly Challenge and fifth in Sunday’s Dickies 500.

"I hope I didn’t screw it up for tomorrow," Busch said. "I’d never won here in a truck. ... It would be awesome to get them all three done here at Texas. I’ve wanted to win a truck race here at Texas, so this is awesome."

It was Busch’s seventh Truck Series victory of the season, 16th overall and his 60th win in NASCAR’s top three series. He has never won a Sprint Cup event here.

"It’d be nice to mark this racetrack off as a place where I’ve won in all three series," Busch said. "But we’ve got tomorrow. Tomorrow’s first. If we do that, then it’s all on Sunday."

Busch’s winning streak began at Bristol on Aug. 19. He won at Chicago the following week, at Loudon on Sept. 19 and at Talladega last week, giving him four victories in four starts before coming to Fort Worth.

He victimized Hornaday in two of those races. Hornaday finished third to Busch at Bristol (losing his own five-race win streak at the same time) and second at Loudon.

Hornaday tried to keep the big picture in mind — he still has the points lead, and he finished the race despite fighting a loose truck.

"We got a top-3. That’s all you can ask for," said the series veteran, who has six victories this year and came in with two victories in his previous three starts at TMS. "If we keep doing that the next two races, we’ll be good."

Crafton lost track position early in the race when he cut a tire on a piece of debris during the first caution. He said he spent the rest of the race trying to make up for that.

"We just had to keep fighting back, fighting back the whole deal," he said.

Crafton tried to conserve fuel for a late push, and for a while, he gave up on going for the lead.

"I didn’t think we could make it all the way," he said after his seventh consecutive top-10. "I could hear it in my crew chief’s voice — he didn’t think so, either. But with 12 to go, he said, 'Go win this race,’ and we went. God, we had a fast truck."

CARLOS MENDEZ, 817-390-7407

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