Subbing for Penske Racing teammate Brad Keselowski, Kurt Busch won Saturday’s Zippo 200 Nationwide Series race at Watkins Glen International in an event in which Busch and his brother, Kyle Busch, combined to lead every lap.
Keselowski, who broke his ankle Aug. 3 during testing at Road Atlanta, watched the race from the ESPN television booth as Busch held off Jimmie Johnson and Joey Logano to win his first Nationwide race since 2006 and his third in 12 career starts.
Busch won in a green-white-checkered-flag finish that took the event three laps past its scheduled distance of 82 laps at the 2.45-mile road course.
Johnson finished second despite a pit-road penalty. Logano was third, followed by Kyle Busch, who couldn’t improve his position after the final restart, and Carl Edwards. NASCAR.com
Kyle led Kurt by 0.893 seconds with 10 laps to go, with Edwards 2.2 seconds back in third as the three distanced themselves from the rest of the pack.
Kurt closed to his brother’s back bumper when both encountered heavy traffic.
“You’re going to have to watch it,” Kyle’s crew chief, Jason Ratcliff, warned over the radio. “Just run it until it runs out.”
Moments later, the fuel pressure began to fluctuate in the No. 18 and Busch had to pit for fuel.
“We were running hard together. It wasn’t to force him to run out of fuel,” Kurt said. “I wanted to race him as fair and square as you can, but they had a problem in the pits and we knew that they were short.
“Of course, we were going to continue to apply pressure. It wasn’t that we were hanging out and waiting. It seemed like I could catch him in traffic and get to his back bumper, but I couldn’t do anything. But that was still with 10 to go. With five to go, I was going to really pour it on, but those guys, they didn’t have enough fuel.” Washington Post
“I knew that it was going to be a good finish,” Busch said. “On the restart at the end, all heck could have broken loose. I actually drove it in a little too deep. That right-front tire was cold. I just have to thank this [No.22] crew for allowing me to step in. They were starting to call me “Buschlowski,” because I was wearing Brad’s fire suit.”
“I knew I had a good car, and I knew it was getting better the longer I ran,” Johnson said. “I was hoping for a lot of green-flag runs, and we had it. I was able to drive up through there.”
Paul Menard finished sixth followed by Ron Fellows and Aric Almirola. Trevor Bayne and Elliott Sadler completed the top-10.
Despite a 15th-place run, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. remained the points leader. Stenhouse holds a 10-point advantage over Reed Sorenson, who finished 13th. MiamiHerald.com
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NASCAR Nationwide Series: Zippo 200 at Watkins Glen - Race Results
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