After letting victories in the past three Nationwide Series races get away from him, Kyle Busch was thrilled to do a wicked burnout, a salutational bow in front of the crowd, and then smash his Gibson Guitar trophy in victory lane after a convincing win in Saturday’s Federated Auto Parts 300 at Nashville Superspeedway.
For the sixth consecutive Nationwide race, Busch led the most laps, but hung on to capture his fourth victory of the season and the 25th of his career. At age 24, he became the youngest driver to win that many races in the series. Kansas City Star
Busch capped his victory celebration after the NASCAR Nationwide Series race by grabbing the custom-painted guitar by the neck and slamming it three times into the Victory Lane concrete before tossing it aside.
The rock star antics originated last year when Busch told his team he would smash one of racing’s most coveted prizes if he ever won at Nashville.
To its credit, the guitar chipped but never shattered.
“It didn’t break according to plan,” Busch said. “We’ll go back to the shop and cut it up into smooth pieces so everyone on the team can have one. Then I’m going to order two more for me and (crew chief) Jason Ratcliff.
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The 24-year-old Busch also has three Sprint Cup victories and two Camping World Trucks wins this year, giving him 51 career victories in NASCAR’s top three series.
Keselowski, the race winner last year coming off a victory last week in Dover, was second — 0.891 seconds back. Edwards, a three-time Nashville Superspeedway winner, finished third on the 1.333-mile concrete oval.
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Mike Bliss was fourth, followed by Jason Leffler. The Associated Press
Busch won for the first time after leading the most laps in the previous three races. He won the pole and led the most laps again Saturday, but this time nothing went wrong at the end of the race.
Busch also avoided a series of wrecks early and midway through the 225-lap race. Busch’s crew serviced his Toyota in a 14.3 seconds during the final round of green-flag stops with 35 laps to go, and he was back in front by Lap 202.
“It was a good day overall,” Busch said. “We had a great race car, sat on the pole and led the most laps. Brad had some good stuff and was coming at the end but we were up front and got out a ways. We may have been a little tight at the end. Maybe that’s why he was running us a down.” NASCAR.com
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