Kyle Busch recovered from a wild sequence in which he lost the lead on a restart and fell 20 seconds behind after a drive-through penalty to win the NASCAR Nationwide Series race Friday night at Phoenix International Raceway.
Busch was back to 10th before the final restart with eight laps left, even after making contact with teammate Joey Logano on pit road and saying on the radio that he was having transmission problems. But when the race restarted, Busch charged through the field to retake the lead in three laps and won by 1.55 seconds over Kevin Harvick. The Associated Press
Busch passed Keselowski, the series’ new points leader, with five laps to go and drove on for the win while Kevin Harvick edged Keselowski for runner-up honors.
“I had a shot at winning the race,’’ said Keselowski. “We just couldn’t hold on to the speed in long runs.’‘
Busch led a race-best 129 laps and Keselowski led 56, but his third-place finish was enough to pass Carl Edwards for the points lead. Auto Racing Daily
RANK DRIVER POINTS BEHIND 1 Brad Keselowski 974 Leader 2 Carl Edwards 970 -4 3 Kyle Busch 959 -15 4 Kevin Harvick 929 -45 5 Justin Allgaier 923 -51 6 Paul Menard 804 -170 7 Joey Logano 728 -246 8 Greg Biffle 718 -256 9 Mike Wallace 664 -310 10 Scott Lagasse Jr. 663 -311 11 Brendan Gaughan 651 -323 12 Brian Scott* 619 -355 13 Michael Annett 608 -366 14 Jason Leffler 607 -367 15 Tony Raines 601 -373 16 Steve Wallace 600 -374 17 Trevor Bayne 587 -387 18 Joe Nemechek 557 -417 19 Kenny Wallace 546 -428 20 Kelly Bires 543 -431 21 James Buescher* 542 -432 22 Eric McClure 524 -450 23 Michael McDowell 507 -467 24 Brian Keselowski 498 -476 25 Josh Wise 492 -482 26 John Wes Townley 484 -490 27 Mike Bliss 480 -494 28 Ricky Stenhouse Jr.* 475 -499 29 Scott Riggs 465 -509 30 Brian Vickers 457 -517 31 Reed Sorenson 443 -531 32 Colin Braun* 435 -539 33 Willie Allen 343 -631 34 Jason Keller 331 -643 35 Robert Richardson Jr. 331 -643 36 Johnny Sauter 291 -683 37 Scott Wimmer 290 -684 38 Shelby Howard 279 -695 39 Derrike Cope 271 -703 40 Morgan Shepherd 249 -725 41 Danny Efland 234 -740 42 Kevin Lepage 218 -756 43 Kasey Kahne 210 -764 44 Tony Stewart 195 -779 45 Danica Patrick 183 -791 46 Denny Hamlin 175 -799 47 Danny O'Quinn Jr. 160 -814 48 Parker Kligerman* 155 -819 49 Mark Green 147 -827 50 Stanton Barrett 143 -831 51 Clint Bowyer 130 -844
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