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Back in June, Kyle Busch was running out in front of the “Heluva Good! 200” at Dover International Speedway when a wreck ended his chances at a victory. This time around, there was no such incident to stand between Busch and his eighth Nationwide win of the season.
Busch drove away from Mike Bliss during a green-white-checkered finish to win the “Camping World RV Sales 200 supporting the Childress Institute for Pediatric Trauma.” The win was Busch’s 19th win over all three of NASCAR’s major racing series this season. Brad Keselowski overcame a couple pit road mishaps to finish third.
“It was a great run for us today,” Busch said. “I’m really proud of all the guys on this team and everybody at Joe Gibbs Racing. It was just a phenomenal race car and a lot of fun to drive.”
The race saw seven cautions for 34 laps, most of which came in the final 60 miles. That tilted the race in Busch’s favor – his car was best off restarts, while Bliss and Keselowski were better on long runs. Bliss was leading by two seconds when the caution flag came out after a crash on lap 142. He was third out of the pits, behind Scott Wimmer and Busch. Busch quickly took the lead and held it through three subsequent cautions and restarts.
“This car ran real well in the spring, and we didn’t really change a lot from that setup,” Bliss said. “The car was very good from 25 laps on. Up to 25, it was just average. [Busch] was just a bullet. It was a good run for us. I honestly thought we finally had a chance to win a race, but Kyle decided to come to this race.”
Said Busch: “We had a good enough car to where in the long runs I could back it off a little bit and he would catch us. It would take a 200-lap long run for him to gain the ground back that he’d lost. Our car was so good on the green-flag run, it’d just go.”
Busch led the first 72 laps until Kelly Bires, who started second alongside Busch, brought out the day’s first caution flag when he hit the wall in Turn 3. Busch gave it up for just one lap during the pit cycle, but took it back and led the next 25 laps until Brian Clauson, who’s gunning for Rookie of the Year honors, got tapped from behind and lost control on the front stretch.
Bliss came out of that caution with the lead, and held it for the next 44 laps. But when Derrick Cope and Scott Lagasse tangled at Lap 142, Wimmer changed up his pit strategy and got out of the pits in front of both Bliss and Busch.
“The only way we were going to get in front of the 18 was to get out in front of him,” said Wimmer, who finished fourth. “We took two tires twice there and just ran out of left side tires there. Restarts were tricky. We definitely didn’t need them at the end and we got a bunch.”
Restarts or not, it probably didn’t matter much for Wimmer. Busch drove right by him when the green flag fell at Lap 148, and was not seriously challenged the rest of the way.
“I had been doing a couple things on the last couple starts to make sure I got good starts,” Busch said. “I wasn’t too happy with our transmission ratios. Going through there I broke reverse, so now we’ve got to go through the transmission anyway, so I can pick my own ratios for the next time.”
Keselowski finished third after a day that had him fighting uphill most of the time. Issues on pit road cost him track positions on a couple occasions.
