Busch held off Greg Biffle at Auto Club Speedway, by .051 seconds on a green-white-checkered restart, the 10th-closest margin of victory in the history of NASCAR’s second-tier series. It was his sixth victory at the track and his third here in the Nationwide Series, the last of which came a year ago today.
On the final restart, created after Brendan Gaughan spun out on lap 145 to bring out a caution, Biffle quickly pushed by Logano and Busch followed him. Busch then got under Biffle on the final turn and beat him for his 31st Nationwide victory, tying him for third on the career list after only 175 starts.
“This is a neat race track, it’s pretty wide and spread out. ... There at the end, it felt like the race track was really narrow,” Busch said. “It was exciting for us.”
On the other hand Danica Patrick accomplished one of her goals by finishing the race. She is still a long way from the lead packs in NASCAR. She started the day 36th and quickly dropped to the back of the field. She was passed by Logano only 17 laps into the race. Yet, it took another 43 laps before Logano lapped her again.
On her first two stops, Patrick was penalized for speeding on pit row. Patrick repeatedly said this week that the difficult part for her is not knowing for sure how things are supposed to feel in a stock car. It was clear she was trying to figure that out and she accomplished what she has to do—focus on running laps and gaining experience. Auto Racing Daily
RANK DRIVER POINTS BEHIND 1 Carl Edwards 335 Leader 2 Joey Logano 311 -24 3 Kyle Busch 304 -31 4 Justin Allgaier 303 -32 5 Brad Keselowski 299 -36 6 Brian Vickers 297 -38 7 Steve Wallace 289 -46 8 James Buescher* 271 -64 9 Greg Biffle 265 -70 10 Paul Menard 256 -79 11 Brian Scott* 240 -95 12 Michael Annett 239 -96 13 Scott Riggs 233 -102 14 Kevin Harvick 219 -116 15 Mike Wallace 216 -119 16 Tony Raines 214 -121 17 Tony Stewart 195 -140 18 Brian Keselowski 191 -144 19 Kenny Wallace 191 -144 20 Michael McDowell 191 -144 21 Jason Leffler 185 -150 22 Scott Lagasse Jr. 185 -150 23 Eric McClure 175 -160 24 Trevor Bayne 170 -165 25 Colin Braun* 170 -165 26 Joe Nemechek 169 -166 27 John Wes Townley 167 -168 28 Brendan Gaughan 164 -171 29 Robert Richardson Jr. 152 -183 30 Kelly Bires 146 -189 31 Danny Efland 140 -195 32 Kasey Kahne 138 -197 33 Danica Patrick 128 -207 34 Mike Bliss 125 -210 35 Jason Keller 103 -232 36 Bobby Gerhart 103 -232 37 Ricky Stenhouse Jr.* 101 -234 38 Josh Wise 98 -237 39 Morgan Shepherd 97 -238 40 Parker Kligerman* 97 -238 41 David Reutimann 85 -250 42 Jeff Green 82 -253 43 Dale Earnhardt Jr. 81 -254
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