Kyle Busch wins Kansas Busch race
By Diego Mejia Sunday, September 30th 2007, 00:27 GMT
Kyle Busch edged Matt Kenseth in a close fight in the closing laps to score his third Busch Series victory of the season in the Yellow Transportation 300 at Kansas Speedway.
Busch took the lead away from polesitter Matt Kenseth with 17 laps to go after a restart and then pulled away when the green flag waved after the last caution period with 14 laps remaining. He snatched victory away from the Roush Fenway driver, who had led the most laps in the afternoon.
“On the restarts the fastest groove is the bottom so I was kind of surprised Matt went up that bad and I got a run on the bottom and just stayed there,” Busch said. “I had two laps where I could do it.
“If I didn’t get it done in those two laps it was going to get too tight and [I would] end up being side by side with him or even right behind him again.”
The Hendrick Motorsports driver recovered from a penalty that dropped him down the order after he sped on pit road on lap 88. As a consequence, Busch only emerged as a threat for victory in the closing stages, leading just the last 17 laps of the race.
“I didn’t know if [the car] was going to be that good but I knew it was pretty good.” Busch added. “The field got really spread out there and it was going to be tough to overcome all that but we were lucky that we got a few cautions to stay bunched up.”
Kenseth had his own dramas as well when he had a loose wheel during the race, which forced him to return to the pits. However a later caution allowed him to pit just for fuel and no tyres, putting himself back in contention for victory until Busch overtook him.
“We were good in the long run and I think Kyle was just a little bit tighter than I was,” said Kenseth. “In the restart I kind of chose from the middle to the top [of the track] so I kind of lost there at the bottom. He just got a good run and cleared me on that one restart. I just didn’t have quite enough time to get by him.”
The Roush Fenway driver made slight contact with his teammate Carl Edwards on lap 96, causing him a cut tyre, which apparently snowballed in further mechanical problems that ended his day when Edwards hit the wall head-on with 48 laps remaining.
As the field went by the wrecked car of the points leader, he sarcastically applauded Kenseth, giving him the thumbs-up signal, not exactly because he wanted to wish him luck in winning the race.
“I don’t really know exactly what his problem was,” said Kenseth. “Early in the race he went outside of us, three or four wide on a restart up there. I didn’t really expect him to be up there as he is trying to race for the championship.
“I left him some room on the top and we just barely made contact. I guess I ought to cut a tyre or something, so that’s why he must be mad but I don’t really know.”
Edwards was more calm later when he left the care centre. He said the impact with the SAFER barrier had been a heavy one, which may have hurt more than the lost points, given that he still enjoys a massive gap in the points lead.
“I was a little bit upset with [Matt Kenseth] about what happened earlier but my guys told me there on the radio that he expressed he didn’t do it on purpose. Hopefully that’s the case,” said Edwards.
“I just got something loose there in the front end and I got real loose. I think my sway bar or something broke, I thought. So I over-corrected and turned it into the fence. That was a pretty hard hit. It hurt a little bit.”
Casey Mears, Clint Bowyer and Jamie McMurray rounded up the top five and in fact all the top thirteen finishers were Nextel Cup drivers. Jeff Burton, Brian Vickers and Greg Biffle all led a good number of laps but had to settle for 8th, 9th and 10th respectively.
While the first half of the race was pretty uneventful, the second half had plenty of incidents. JR Motorsports’ Brad Kaselowski was involved in a number of them until he finally crashed out of the race for good on lap 178, causing the caution flag that Kyle Busch used to his advantage to attack Matt Kenseth.
The Busch Series will have a week off before returning at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in two weeks’ time to kick off the final five events of the year.
Pos Driver Make Laps 1. Kyle Busch Chevrolet 200 2. Matt Kenseth Ford 200 3. Casey Mears Chevrolet 200 4. Clint Bowyer Chevrolet 200 5. Jamie McMurray Ford 200 6. Denny Hamlin Chevrolet 200 7. Paul Menard Chevrolet 200 8. Jeff Burton Chevrolet 200 9. Brian Vickers Toyota 200 10. Greg Biffle Ford 200 11. Tony Stewart Chevrolet 200 12. Kasey Kahne Dodge 200 13. Kevin Harvick Chevrolet 200 14. Todd Bodine Toyota 200 15. Scott Wimmer Chevrolet 200 16. Jason Keller Chevrolet 200 17. David Reutimann Toyota 200 18. Casey Atwood Ford 200 19. Stephen Leicht Ford 200 20. Bobby Hamilton Jr Ford 200 21. Jason Leffler Toyota 200 22. Bobby East Ford 200 23. Bryan Clauson Dodge 199 24. Mark Green Chevrolet 199 25. A.J. Allmendinger Dodge 198 26. Richard Johns Ford 198 27. Brent Sherman Chevrolet 198 28. Kyle Krisiloff Ford 198 29. D.J. Kennington Dodge 197 30. Chris Horn Chevrolet 196 31. Mike Bliss Dodge 195 32. Johnny Sauter Chevrolet 192 33. J.J. Yeley Chevrolet 190 34. David Ragan Ford 188 35. Kevin Conway Chevrolet 184 36. Brad Keselowski Chevrolet 175 37. Steve Wallace Dodge 175 38. Carl Edwards Ford 142 39. Marcos Ambrose Ford 125 40. Kelly Bires Ford 111 41. Mike Wallace Chevrolet 67 42. Eric McClure Chevrolet 65 43. Kertus Davis Chevrolet 17