Busch cruises to fourth Xfinity win of season
Kyle Busch is to the NASCAR Xfinity Series what Brutus is to Popeye.
And someone needs a seriously potent can of spinach to stop this muscled giant in the Xfinity Series.
Until then, expect more of the same in weeks the Sprint Cup veteran runs in the lower tier series.
Busch, the pole sitter, and his Joe Gibbs Toyota dominated Friday night’s O’Reilly Auto Parts 300, leading 150 of the race’s 200 laps to claim a victory over Erik Jones, a Gibbs teammate and Xfinity rookie who finished as the runner-up to Busch for a second time this season.
We had a really good race car. There were times Erik Jones and Kyle Larson got to us, but I knew we would prevail in the long haul.
Kyle Busch
The victory marked Busch’s record eighth in the Xfinity Series at TMS.
Busch has won four of the past five Xfinity races this season. And three races in three series (Trucks, Sprint Cup and Xfinity) in the past seven days.
“It’s certainly rewarding,” Busch said. “That’s what we’re here for. Each and every event we try to win. Hopefully we can [today]. Our car is good … it could be better.”
The 30-year-old Las Vegas native, the chatty competitor whose talking sometimes has the same effect on colleagues as a chigger does an outdoorsman, declared afterward that “everybody gets a break from Kyle” after next week’s race at Bristol Motor Speedway.
He’s not slated to race in the series again until June.
In the near term, though, he has his sights on a double take in Texas: sweeping the Xfinity and Sprint Cup races in the same weekend, a feat he accomplished at TMS in 2013. He is the only driver to do so.
Busch, who earned the pole with a lap of 28.6 seconds at 188 mph, ceded the lead to Jones first and then to Sprint Cup buddy Kyle Larson, who led 38 laps before fading.
Series leader Daniel Suarez, who had run in the top 10 of every race this season, finished 16th, his problems reaching a peak after spinning out in Turn 4 on Lap 76. He stood 10th at the time of the slip. Suarez maintained his lead, though it shrunk to one point over Elliott Sadler.
It is frustrating. He’s in old form again. I respect what he does and his ability … it will be really gratifying when we can [beat him]. We want to beat the 18 one of these days.
Erik Jones on Kyle Busch
Jones had an issue, too, sent to the back after being penalized for a pit member over the wall too soon.
Jones, the top rookie on the series who won as a trucks regular a year ago, was followed by Brad Keselowski — his 13th top-10 finish in 17 series races at TMS — Chase Elliott and Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jones, six weeks shy of his 20th birthday, posted his fourth top-10 of the season.
“It is frustrating,” Jones said of Busch. “He’s in old form again. I respect what he does and his ability … it will be really gratifying when we can [beat him]. We want to beat the 18 one of these days.”
The victory was the 80th in Busch’s career in the Xfinity Series, and his pole was the 51st in 316 career races.
Triumphs last weekend at Martinsville, winning the Camping World Truck Series race and the Sprint Cup race, has Busch on a quite a roll.
He’s third in the Sprint Cup point standings, behind leader Kevin Harvick.
“We had a really good race car,” Busch said. “There were times Erik Jones and Kyle Larson got to us, but I knew we would prevail in the long haul. Certainly we had some good speed.”
This story was originally published April 8, 2016 at 11:26 PM with the headline "Busch cruises to fourth Xfinity win of season."