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Busch Dominant Yet Spectacular In Indiana 250 Win

Speedway, Ind., July 27-The record book will portray a dominant Kyle Busch led 92 of 100 laps en route to victory in the Indiana 250 NASCAR Nationwide Series race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

    Kyle Busch celebrates in victory lane at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway after winning the Indiana 250. [Russ Lake Photo]


However, no stat sheet can describe the scene that played out as Busch lost the lead with six laps to go following a wild restart and then fought his way back to the front to pace the final three circuits and secure the victory.

“It’s Indianapolis, it’s pretty awesome to win here,” an excited Busch stated from victory lane. “It’s cool just to win at this place with all the history and all the automobiles that have raced on this surface before.”

The craziness began as the green flag waved at the end of a late caution period for debris generated by hard racing amongst Trevor Bayne, Parker Kligerman, and Kasey Kahne with Busch leading over Joey Logano and Kevin Harvick. Harvick held back at the restart point in an attempt to build up a challenge for the lead and as Busch slowed the pace to defend the move, it left him entering turn one side by side with Logano. Busch and Logano swapped sheet metal in the turn and as both slipped high on the track, the door opened for Brian Scott to charge from fourth into the lead, leaving Logano and Busch to dispute second place with the laps winding down.

“I had no friends around me on the restart,” Busch stated, “Harvick was hanging back a little bit trying to get a run and time it right and I waited on him until the last loop, the one marker on the restart zone. I had to wait and bottle everybody up so I could be single file or at least have just Logano to deal with and not everybody else trying to dive bomb me.”

“I got into turn one and just lost all grip, just slid,” Busch continued, “I was turning left and right just trying not to get into Logano and I got into him and we chased it up the race track. I was watching my mirror at the same time and then here comes Brian Scott out of nowhere and he got by us there.”

Busch recovered and quickly dispatched Logano for second and began to hunt down Scott, who enjoyed the benefits of the clean air out front. With easily the most dominant car all day underneath him, Busch closed the gap to the lead and with three laps to go was planted square on Scott’s rear bumper. Intensely trying to keep the faster Busch behind him, Scott’s car washed wide in turn two and Busch swept by below to reclaim the lead he seemed to have had a lock on all day. Back out front, Busch steadily pulled away and captured his Series leading 59th career NASCAR Nationwide Series victory, 2.141 seconds ahead of Scott and Logano.

“It made it tough to pass him (Scott) back, “Busch said describing the pass for the lead, “I had to use the air he was taking from me to my advantage on him and get him loose and then try to get by.”

Scott’s late race move was enough to keep him in second place and he held onto the runner-up position as the checkered flag waved.

Logano crossed the finish line in third place and afterwards said the hard racing on the final restart was his only chance to grab the victory.

“I was willing to pin him (Busch) on the bottom and take the air off him,” Logano stated, “That was my only shot I had to take the lead and I thought if I took the lead that I could beat him. I felt like I had a good shot on the outside and had a good restart.” I pinned him down there and he got loose and slid me up into the marbles, “Logano continued, “It was good hard racing and nothing to be mad about.”

Brian Vickers raced among the leaders throughout the event and wheeled his car to a fourth place finish, good enough to collect the $100,000 Nationwide Dash 4 Cash bonus.

“I think we had a car for him (Busch), except we were on the splitter,” Vickers explained, “We were awesome yesterday in practice and we probably got greedy trying to get more out of it. But it’s still a great top five and a good points day for us.”

Kevin Harvick finished in fifth place ahead of Paul Menard and Matt Kenseth in sixth and seventh respectively. Rookie Kevin Swindell turned in an impressive performance with a solid eighth place result while Michael Annett crossed the stripe in ninth place. Travis Pastrana recovered from an incident in qualifying and drove his back-up car to tenth place from his 39th starting position.

Austin Dillon’s twelfth place finish was enough to net him the NASCAR Nationwide Series point lead after both Sam Hornish, who led the points entering the event, and Regan Smith each experienced mechanical issues during the race. Hornish finished 34th and retired from the race with overheating issues while Smith wound up 19th and still running at the finish after experiencing similar overheating problems.

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