On the eve of his 24th birthday, Kyle Busch won the Lipton Tea 250 Nationwide Series race at Richmond International Raceway.
Busch held off Carl Edwards in two late-race restarts to capture his third Nationwide victory of the season and the 24th of his career, which places him in a tie with Matt Kenseth and Tommy Houston for fifth on the series’ all-time race winners list. MiamiHerald.com
“It’s fun here at Richmond—I love winning here at Richmond,” said Busch, who will celebrate his 24th birthday on Saturday. “We’re in championship form. We’ve just got to keep digging.”
Matt Kenseth finished third, followed by Brad Keselowski and Kevin Harvick. Joey Logano, Mark Martin, rookie Michael McDowell, Jason Keller and Jason Leffler completed the top 10.
In Edwards’ view, the difference in the race was Busch’s performance on the restarts.
“He smoked me on the restarts,” Edwards said. “I did everything I could. That car that he’s got there just runs really well on those restarts. I could probably do a little bit better job, but I did the best I could on that last one, and I couldn’t get near him.
“But it’s a great race car, and even though it’s second, it’s still a decent points day, and it’s good to be this strong here at Richmond.” NASCAR.com
Busch’s Toyota, he said, “was right when it mattered most.”
The Sprint Cup star proved it by passing Edwards to the outside to grab the lead and then twice more on the final restarts — with eight laps to go and again with five laps remaining.
“I feel like tonight was a good night to get back on track,” Busch said. “Tonight was a race that mattered and we had our biggest challenger behind us in Carl, so it was nice to beat him out, straight up, and we had some other issues with the car that we fought through.”
Busch’s lead over Edwards in the series standings grew to 82 points.
Martin, the career leader with 48 series victories, wound up seventh.
“Maybe we’ll have a contender tomorrow night,” Martin said.
“I had a pretty solid car. I just could never get it quite right to be able to run with those guys,” Kenseth said. “It would be nice to be able to win one of these things, too.” The Associated Press
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