After letting a pair of wins slip away in his last two starts at Bristol Motor Speedway, the third time proved the charm for Kyle Busch.
Busch dominated the field, won the race off pit road on his final stop and held off teammate Denny Hamlin on a green/white/checkered finish to win the Food City 500 on Sunday.
Busch said getting out of the pits ahead of Hamlin on the money stop late in the race was the difference after a less than stellar stop the time before.
“I told the ladies to man up and get the job done the last stop,” he said. “They got the job done. The last stop was smooth. It’s what made it happen.”
On Sunday, Busch was finally able to put it all together, leading 378 laps and earning his second career Sprint Cup victory at BMS. It was also the third straight Cup victory for the Busch brothers; older brother Kurt was the winner in the series’ previous stop at Atlanta a week after Kyle won at Las Vegas.
“This place probably owes me a few but you can never ask a racetrack to pay you back,” Kyle Busch said of Bristol. “Fortunately today we had a good enough car. Here we are in Victory Lane. It’s awesome.”
Jimmie Johnson ran third, matching his best result at Bristol (August 2004). Jeff Gordon expanded his lead in the point standings with a fourth-place finish, and Kasey Kahne ran fifth to collect the second Bristol top-five of his career.
Pole sitter Mark Martin, front-row starter Ryan Newman, Jeff Burton, Juan Montoya and Marcos Ambrose completed the top 10. Ambrose had never finished better than 17th in a Cup race on an oval track.
Hamlin, who was second for a restart on Lap 502 after the engine of JGR teammate Joey Logano blew to cause the ninth and final caution, said Busch’s ability to pull out to a significant lead on the short runs was the difference in the race.
“We had a good car,” said Hamlin, who gained six positions to eighth in the Cup standings. “It was extremely good on the long runs. It seemed like our car, we’d lose a little bit of ground to those guys—about a straightaway or so until about 100 laps. Then we’d come in.”
| 
|