Kyle Busch, No. 18 M&M’S Toyota Camry Race Recap for the Hollywood Casino 400

Race Winner:    Joey Logano of Team Penske (Ford)

Stage 1 Winner: Chase Elliott of Hendrick Motorsports (Chevrolet)

Stage 2 Winner: Denny Hamlin of Joe Gibbs Racing (Toyota)

 

Stage 1 Recap (Laps 1-80):

Kyle Busch started 20th and finished 10th to score one bonus point.

● The M&M’S TREAT TOWN driver started in 20th and found himself up to 16th by the time the competition yellow waved on lap 25.

● Busch was called to pit road by Adam Stevens to take on four tires, fuel, and adjustments on lap 27 and restarted 13th on lap 30.

● The M&M’S driver moved his way up into the top-10 by the end of Stage 1.

 

Stage 2 Recap (Laps 81-160):

Busch started eighth and finished 12th.

The Las Vegas native came to pit road on lap 83 and took on four tires, fuel, and adjustments, with the M&M’S over-the-wall team two gaining two spots to help Busch start eighth for Stage 2.

Busch restarted on the inside and got in a three-wide situation on the restart, falling to 17th by lap 93.

The caution waved late in Stage 2 and Stevens called Busch to pit road for four tires, fuel, and to fix a hole in the nose of the M&M’S Toyota. Busch restarted 29th on lap 148 as a result.

Busch had a strong restart and worked his way up to 12th by the time Stage 2 ended.

 

Final Stage Recap (Laps 161-267):

Busch started first and finished fifth.

Busch stayed out following Stage 2 and restarted as the leader.

Despite being on older tires than the rest of the frontrunners, Busch settled into fourth-place as the race headed close to the 200-lap mark.

With the caution waving for Kurt Busch’s engine issue, Kyle Busch came to pit road on lap 201 for tires, fuel and adjustments, as the M&M’S TREAT TOWN team gained Busch two spots coming off pit road to restart in the second position.

On the ensuing restart, Busch was shuffled out of the draft and found himself in 10th by lap 209.

The caution waved on lap 220 and Busch came to pit road on lap 222, where took four tires, fuel, and adjustments, with yet another strong stop by the M&M’S over-the-wall team who vaulted Busch up six spots to restart fifth on lap 225.

 Busch was able to battle over the last 42 laps of the race to bring home a solid top-five finish.

 

Notes:

● Busch’s fifth-place finish was his eighth career top-five finish at Kansas in 26 starts at the 1.5-mile oval.

● Busch now has 13 top-fives and 18 top-10s thus far in 2020 with just three races remaining in the season.  

 

Kyle Busch, driver of the No. 18 M&M’S TREAT TOWN Toyota Camry for Joe Gibbs Racing:

“Any time you get back in the pack, it’s just so hard to pass and work your way up towards the front. Everybody is so equal and with the dirty air, trying to get through some of that stuff is a challenge. But any time we got up front it seemed like our car was way different, way better and had a better opportunity to run in the top-three, top-five. Even when we were on old tires earlier in the day it was probably the best it was and we held onto third, I think, for that run there. I don’t know, just really cool to always have the M&M’s Halloween scheme this time of year. It’s really cool. Hope people go and download the Treat Town app on their device and have a happy Halloween. I appreciate M&M’s, Toyota, Interstate Batteries, Rheem, Stanley – we’ll be back next week.”

 

Next Up:

The next event on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule is the Autotrader EchoPark Automotive 500 on Sunday, Oct. 25 at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth. The race starts at 3:30 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by NBCSN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

 

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