Kyle Busch went to victory lane at Bristol Motor Speedway on Friday in the Food City 300. Busch, a driver from Las Vegas, Nevada, started on the pole and cruised to his 91st career XFINITY Series victory.
The win did not come easy for the NASCAR veteran. On lap 88, while pitting at the conclusion of stage one, Busch, along with three other drivers, were popped for speeding. As a result, Busch had to restart at the tail of the field in 19th.
“At least I didn’t have to come through in the last stage because everybody was pretty fast there tonight in the last stage,” said Busch after the race. “I don’t know if I would have been able to make it all the way back up through there. (Daniel) Suárez gave us a heck of a run there. I was trying to push hard and he was closing in on us a little bit there before that last caution came out. Once that caution came out everything cooled down and my car wasn’t even close to what it was before, so I don’t know how held on to it. The car was just so sideways.
He slowly but surely worked his way towards the front. Later on lap 91, Busch found himself back into the top spot.
With the Camping World Truck Series win on Wednesday and tonight’s NASCAR XFINITY Series win, Busch will go for the weekend sweep in tomorrow’s Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race. Busch is feeling confident as he goes into tomorrow’s race.
“I think we can, yeah. We’ve got a fast car. We just have to make the right adjustments overnight here and get it ready for tomorrow,” Busch continued after the race. “We had a really fast car first round in qualifying and then we lost four tenths of a second. I don’t know what happened or where that went. Adam (Stevens) and I are trying to figure that out. You know our heads are in the books and in the computer trying to find it and we just don’t see it so hopefully our race setup is pretty good. We felt like our race setup was pretty good. We struggled in qualifying all day today and so if that’s any indication to how our car is then we’ll still have speed in it.”
He’ll start tomorrow’s cup race sitting 18th on the leaderboard.
Daniel Suarez finished second behind teammate Kyle Busch. Suarez, who started seventh on the leaderboard, gave Busch a run for the lead in the closing laps of the Food City 300. The native of Mexico now holds five top five and six top 10 finishes through 11 XFINITY Series starts.
Elliott Sadler, the highest finishing XFINITY Series regular on Friday, rounded out the top three finishers of the Food City 300. After starting in eighth, Sadler led 15-laps in his No. 1 OneMain Financial Chevrolet for JR Motorsports. The series veteran now has nine top five and 17 top 10 finishes through 22 races.
JR Motorsports will hold the top three spots in points as the series heads to Road America. Elliott Sadler leads the standings by 110 points over teammate William Byron. Justin Allgaier sits third looking 136 points behind teammate Elliott Sadler. Brennan Poole and Daniel Hemric round out the top five.
Justin Allgaier showed some strength by leading 75 of the 300 circuits. Allgaier, in the No. 7 BRANDT Chevrolet, went on to grab a fifth place finish for his sixth of the season. Through 22 events in 2017, Allgaier has one victory and 10 top 10 finishes.
Brendan Gaughan and Jeb Burton tangled on lap 283 to bring out the final caution flag of the evening. Gaughan received heavy damage as a result of the incident and was done for the evening. The NASCAR veteran racer from Las Vegas will leave Bristol with a 30th-place finish. Burton finished one spot ahead in 29th.
The NASCAR XFINITY Series will go road course racing for one final time in 2017 on Saturday. They will head to the state of Wisconsin for the Johnsonville 180 at Road America. Coverage of the race will begin at 3:00 p.m. ET. on NBC. The Motor Racing Network and SiriusXM Ch. 90 will carry the live radio broadcast.
About Me: Brett has been following the sport of NASCAR since the beginning of the 2006 NASCAR Sprint Cup season. Since Brett was 13, he has had a passion of chasing a job in sports that not many get the opportunity of doing. He has been in the NASCAR media since the middle of the 2010 season. Since then, he has been a part of many racing podcast shows to improve his talents. He has written for racingonfuel.com and theracingwheel.com. Currently, Brett writes for motorsportsnat.com and TracksideChatter.com. You can find him on twitter @NASCAR_Brett.
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