Kyle Busch led 378 of 502 laps on Sunday to win at Bristol, his second victory of the season. It was redemption for Busch, who lost his power steering while leading last spring and was bumped from the front in August by Carl Edwards after leading 415 laps.
“We should have won here last fall, we should have won here yesterday,” Busch said. “This place probably owes me a few. But you can never ask a race track to pay you back. You just have to just keep working on it.”
He was untouchable in his Toyota in Sunday’s Cup race, even to teammate Denny Hamlin, who followed him across the finish line.
“Man, it’s great to get a 1-2,” Hamlin said of the Joe Gibbs Racing dominance.
Defending three-time series champion Jimmie Johnson was third in a Chevrolet to tie his career-best Bristol finish, back in 2004. Johnson had devoted a good deal of time to figuring out why he’s struggled at Bristol, and the homework with crew chief Chad Knaus clearly paid off.
“What a day for us. I wish we had 500 more laps to go,” he said. “I have to thank Chad and the engineering staff for sitting me down a couple weeks ago to look at this race track and what I need here. I made my wish list and they gave me what I needed.”
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.
FIN ST CAR DRIVER
1 19 18 Kyle Busch
2 24 11 Denny Hamlin
3 3 48 Jimmie Johnson
4 10 24 Jeff Gordon
5 5 9 Kasey Kahne
6 1 5 Mark Martin
7 2 39 Ryan Newman
8 40 31 Jeff Burton
9 12 42 Juan Montoya
10 13 47 Marcos Ambrose
11 32 2 Kurt Busch
12 6 0 David Reutimann
13 31 33 Clint Bowyer
14 34 88 Dale Earnhardt Jr.
15 38 99 Carl Edwards
16 26 44 A.J. Allmendinger
17 15 14 Tony Stewart
18 17 28 Travis Kvapil
19 29 12 David Stremme
20 22 19 Elliott Sadler
21 35 7 Robby Gordon
22 36 96 Bobby Labonte
23 7 43 Reed Sorenson
24 37 7 Casey Mears
25 42 98 Paul Menard
26 20 1 Martin Truex Jr.
27 41 6 David Ragan
28 11 82 Scott Speed *
29 27 83 Brian Vickers
30 30 29 Kevin Harvick
31 25 77 Sam Hornish Jr.
32 21 55 Michael Waltrip
33 33 17 Matt Kenseth
34 39 34 John Andretti
35 18 8 Aric Almirola
36 14 171 David Gilliland
37 9 26 Jamie McMurray
38 23 20 Joey Logano *
39 4 16 Greg Biffle
40 43 9 Sterling Marlin
41 28 187 Joe Nemechek
42 16 64 Todd Bodine
43 8 66 Dave Blaney
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