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Kyle Busch celebrated his 24th birthday in style Saturday night by winning the Crown Royal presents the Russ Friedman 400 at Richmond International Raceway.
Just after a restart, Busch made a daring four-wide pass on the outside to take the second position from Carl Edwards and then moved around Jeff Gordon to grab the lead for good with 49 laps remaining.
The victory was Busch’s third in the Sprint Cup Series this season and the 15th of his career. He also became the second driver to win a Cup race on his birthday.
Cale Yarborough won twice on his birthday. Yarborough picked up the victory at North Wilkesboro, NC the day he turned 37 years old on March 27, 1977. He won at Atlanta six years later to the date as well.
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Busch also scored a weekend sweep at Richmond as he won Friday night’s Nationwide Series race. He joined Harry Gant (1991) and Kevin Harvick (2005) as those drivers to win both races on the same weekend at the three-quarter- mile track. MiamiHerald.com
Busch got to the finish line 2.751 seconds ahead of Tony Stewart who made a late pit stop for tires and worked his way up through the field in the final 50 laps. Jeff Burton survived a medley of wrecks to finish third. Ryan Newman came home fourth and Mark Martin fifth.
“I hope the team enjoys this as much as I do,” Busch said in Victory Lane. “It’s just amazing, man. It’s so cool. The car wasn’t perfect all night—it was good, but it wasn’t perfect. I knew that when we had practice [Friday]. I kept telling [crew chief] Steve [Addington], ‘It doesn’t feel bad, but it’s not perfect.’
“Steve made the right call on when to pit and when to take four tires versus two tires or no tires or whatever, and it really paid off for us there at the end to be able to have that long run like that and not to have to deal with the 14 [Stewart] and the 31 [Burton]. I knew they were coming.
“It’s great to be able to do this on my birthday week—it means a lot.” NASCAR.com
Stewart said confidence makes Busch hard to beat.
“I’ve watched Kyle this week, raced with him Thursday night, got to watch him run last night and tonight,” Stewart said. “When you get in a string like he’s on, you got so much confidence and momentum on your side. That means so much in this series.”
Sam Hornish Jr. was a career-best sixth to continue a three-race upswing. He notched the first top-10 of his career at Phoenix, and he was running inside the top 10 at Talladega last week until he was part of the 10-car accident with 11 laps to go.
Jamie McMurray came back from a mid-race spin to finish seventh and was followed by Gordon, Casey Mears and Juan Pablo Montoya.
Gordon, who lost the points lead to Kurt Busch last week, reclaimed the top spot and now has a 10-point advantage.
For the second consecutive year, Hamlin led the most laps at his home track but fell short of the win. He led 381 of the first 382 laps last spring, only to finish 24th because of a late tire leak. The Associated Press
