Jason Smith/Getty Images for NASCAR
It’s high time Kyle Busch got a new nickname.
“Shrub” is no longer worthy of the younger Busch brother—so how about “The Dominator?”
Busch led a track-record 178 of 200 laps in winning Saturday’s O’Reilly 300 at Texas Motor Speedway by 1.447 seconds over fast-closing Tony Stewart.
“You know it was going to be a battle there if the caution didn’t come out between (Brad) Keselowski and me. He was getting fast there at the end so it was cool it was going to be a battle. I thought (Jeff) Burton was going to be up there,’’ said Busch.
“I wasn’t for sure how good our car was here because of the wind playing havoc with us on Thursday but we qualified on the pole and we beat that too. We won - we love history - we won from the pole today so that’s cool, too,’’ he added.
Busch will sleep well after putting on another rerun of the Kyle Busch Show for the 85,200 fans.
Runner-up Tony Stewart called Busch “bad fast,” and third-place finisher Brad Keselowski said he was “unstoppable.”
“It was a good day for us,” said Busch, who moved into second in the series points standings, 38 behind Carl Edwards. “We won and we love history. We won from the pole, so that’s cool. We got that out of the way so now everybody else can qualify on the pole and win races here.”
Busch became the first pole-sitter in 17 races to win a Nationwide race at TMS. He joined Brendan Gaughan as the only drivers to win at least three consecutive races at TMS. Gaughan won four truck series races in 2002 and ‘03.
Busch led the first 56 laps in his Joe Gibbs-owned Toyota, building a 6-second lead over Jeff Burton before the first pit stop. Before a caution a dozen laps later, Busch had already regained a seven-second lead.
The only time Busch was passed on the track was when he got loose and Burton went by him on the 90th lap. By lap 106, Busch was back in front to stay.
Logano fell back after making contact with series points leader Carl Edwards and finished 12th. Edwards was running fourth at the final caution, and maintained his points lead despite dropping to an 18th-place finish.
David Ragan ended fourth, followed by Paul Menard, Matt Kenseth, Mike Bliss and Jeff Burton. David Reutimann, on the pole for the Sprint Cup race Sunday, was ninth.
