Kyle Busch wins Nationwide race, goes for 3-race Texas sweep

Kyle Busch swept the first two legs of racing at Texas Motor Speedway, winning the O’Reilly Auto Parts Challenge on Saturday to kick off a centennial celebration of sorts for Joe Gibbs Racing.

Behind the wheel of his Toyota Camry, Busch completed the 300-mile trek ahead of his closest pursuers — Joey Logano, the pole-sitter and Chase for the Sprint Cup contender, and truck-series regular Ryan Blaney — to capture his 70th career NASCAR Nationwide Series victory and Gibbs’ 100th on the circuit.

Busch, who won the spring race last year at TMS, will attempt a clean weekend sweep in Sunday’s Sprint Cup AAA Texas 500.

Busch, who qualified sixth earlier in the day, is the only driver to sweep all three of NASCAR’s national series races in one weekend, doing so in 2010 at Bristol.

“It’d be real special, certainly at a new venue,” Busch said. “You don’t get very many opportunities to capture all three.”

Busch’s domination at TMS is symbolized by his collection of cowboy hats, presented to the winner of each race. The victory Saturday marked Busch’s 11th, including seven Nationwide wins and three in the truck series.

He won the first two legs at TMS in 2009 and led 232 laps of the big race before falling out of contention.

“I can only wear one at a time,” Busch said of the hats, “but the sizes keep getting bigger.”

The victory marked Busch’s seventh in the Nationwide Series this year and 23rd top-10 finish. The win was Gibbs’ ninth of the season.

Series points leader Chase Elliott increased his lead to 48 points over Regan Smith, surging to finish fourth after struggling badly to start the race. Elliott, who qualified 11th, credited his crew and chief Greg Ives for making adjustments throughout the race to permit a late rush.

“We were struggling to run 13th and could hardly get into the top 10,” Elliott said. “It was a great team effort to turn a really, really bad day into a decent finish.”

Busch and Logano battled for the lead much of the day. Combined, the two led 175 of the 200 laps. Only Matt Kenseth (five), Smith (five) and Trevor Bayne (15) were part of lead changes. Bayne was knocked out of the race by a bad tire that led to a wreck and engine failure.

Logano took the lead at Lap 158 before Busch recaptured it at Lap 169, pulling away by more than a second at Lap 173.

“Kyle and I had one heck of a race,” Logano said. “We needed a caution or something” at the end.

Logano said he expected Busch’s momentum from consecutive victories to carry over to the Cup race.

The Gibbs team stayed behind Roger Penske in the owner standings, but Joe and his son J.D. reveled in the team’s milestone.

“When we started, we were horrible,” J.D. Gibbs said, recalling the owners’ first days in Nationwide. “We didn’t think we’d ever get there.”

Said Busch: “We ain’t done yet.”

This story was originally published November 1, 2014 at 8:23 PM.