Kyle Busch Wins Seventh Straight at Bristol

Jerry Markland - Getty Images

BRISTOL, TN – RIS – Despite numerous yellow and red flags, Kyle B7usch won the Food City 500 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup race on Monday at Bristol Motor Speedway.  Despite a race that resembled races at the half-mile track before the banking was changed to add an extra lane, Busch was able to win with a familiar move.

Busch took the checkered flag for the seventh time in his career at Bristol to extend his active wins lead at the track. Busch gets his second-straight win in the Cup Series after cruising to Victory Lane last week at Texas. It was also his second consecutive win at what is known as The World's Fastest Half-Mile.

In quite an ironic turn of events, it was Busch's on-track rival Brad Keselowski who allowed him to get in position to win. Just as Busch was encountering tire issues with 20 to go, Keselowski lost a tire and brought out the caution, allowing Busch to get a fresh set. On the restart, Kyle Larson took the lead but once he caught lapped traffic, Busch took advantage and pulled off an old-fashioned Bristol bump-and-run to win.

“We weren’t quite as good as the 42 (Kyle Larson) on that long run before that last caution came out,” Busch said. “I actually thought I had a tire going down, but we were able to get some tires on it and go give it everything we had. We had a 20-lap shootout and that was everything that it was about was right there just chasing down that 42 and being able to get there.”

Larson called finishing second to Busch as “getting aggravating,” but knew what he had to do to get back around Busch.

“I knew it would be hard to get back to him,” Larson said.  “I knew I would need a lapper to kind of hold him up on exit and kill his momentum to allow me to maybe get back to his bumper, but there just weren't a whole lot of cars left out there.”

Ryan Blaney led 100 laps on Sunday and nearly took the green-and-white checkered in Stage 1, but he got caught up in a lapped-traffic wreck, which ended his day 10 laps before the stage ended. Two red flags were thrown in the stage, the first being for rain and the second was for track clean-up. Brad Keselowski avoided the wreck and went on to win Stage 1 after a one-lap sprint following the delay.

Then it rained buckets and the remainder of the race was rescheduled for Monday.

Larson restarted Monday as the race leader but chose not to pit before going green. The No. 42 built a strong lead, but the tires eventually gave up as Keselowski passed him with seven to go in Stage 2. Keselowski took two tires on the previous pit stop and moved up 11 spots before taking the green-and-white checkered.

Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., had a strong car. Running up front for most of the day, he fell short and finished fourth.  In the closing laps, the quartet of Larson, Stenhouse, Jimmie Johnson, and Busch ran close together with Stenhouse getting alongside then leader Larson several times, but his tires gave out.  Johnson had his first top five finish of the season, but also fell short at the end.

Stenhouse had his own ideas on why the attempts to pass failed.

“The call where Brian got us to come down pit road, that was the longest green flag run we had and we had a little bit better tires than some of the guys up front, so that was nice for us, Stenhouse said.  “All in all, I was bummed that caution came out.  Being on better tires I thought we were gonna be able to run down the 42.  He was by far the class of the field I’d say throughout the whole run and the whole race.  We were fighting track position, gaining it and losing it back-and-forth over the last two days, but it was a really strong run for our Ford.  We had a good Friday, a good Saturday and a good race on Sunday and Monday.”

Johnson felt like his showing just might be an indication of his team finally turning the corner on the season.

“Yeah, we definitely a strong race car.  We've been talking about our cars performing better and driving better and creating speed the last three weeks or so, but to finally back it up with a solid finish is exactly what we needed.  And to see my teammates with positive comments about their cars the last few weeks and some good results yielding from all of that, we definitely have it rolling in the right direction.”

Unofficial Race Results for the 58th Annual Food City 500 - Bristol Motor Speedway
Fin, Str, Driver, Car, Laps, St1, St2, Tms Led, Laps, Playoff Pts, Pts, Status
1) 1, Kyle Busch, No. 18 Skittles Toyota, 500, , 2, 5, 117, 5, 49, Running
2) 6, Kyle Larson, No. 42 McDonald's Chevrolet, 500, 5, 5, 4, 200, , 47, Running
3) 17, Jimmie Johnson, No. 48 Lowe's for Pros Chevrolet, 500, 7, 3, , , , 46, Running
4) 4, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., No. 17 SunnyD Ford, 500, 10, 6, , , , 39, Running
5) 8, Alex Bowman, No. 88 Nationwide Chevrolet, 500, , 7, , , , 36, Running
6) 19, Aric Almirola, No. 10 Smithfield Ford, 500, 8, , , , , 34, Running
7) 39, Kevin Harvick, No. 4 Busch Beer Ford, 500, , 8, , , , 33, Running
8) 14, Clint Bowyer, No. 14 Haas Automation Demo Day Ford, 500, 3, , , , , 37, Running
9) 10, Joey Logano, No. 22 Autotrader Ford, 500, , , 1, 1, , 28, Running
10) 30, Ryan Newman, No. 31 Bass Pro Shops/Cabela's Chevrolet, 500, 2, , , , , 36, Running
11) 12, Daniel Suarez, No. 19 ARRIS Toyota, 500, , , 1, 5, , 26, Running
12) 23, David Ragan, No. 38 The Pete Store Ford, 500, , , , , , 25, Running
13) 7, Paul Menard, No. 21 Menards/Dutch Boy Ford, 499, , , , , , 24, Running
14) 25, Denny Hamlin, No. 11 FedEx Freight Toyota, 499, , 4, 1, 4, , 30, Running
15) 21, Austin Dillon, No. 3 Realtree Chevrolet, 499, , 9, , , , 24, Running
16) 20, Darrell Wallace Jr. #, No. 43 STP Chevrolet, 499, , 10, 1, 6, , 22, Running
17) 18, AJ Allmendinger, No. 47 Kroger ClickList Chevrolet, 499, 4, , , , , 27, Running
18) 11, William Byron #, No. 24 AXALTA Chevrolet, 498, , , , , , 19, Running
19) 31, Jamie McMurray, No. 1 Cessna Chevrolet, 498, , , , , , 18, Running
20) 29, Landon Cassill, No. 00 TW CABLE Chevrolet, 498, , , , , , 17, Running
21) 24, Matt DiBenedetto, No. 32 Keen Parts/CorvetteParts.Net Ford, 497, , , , , , 16, Running
22) 2, Kurt Busch, No. 41 Haas Automation/Monster Energy Ford, 496, 9, , , , , 17, Running
23) 3, Brad Keselowski, No. 2 Discount Tire Ford, 495, 1, 1, 4, 67, 2, 34, Running
24) 33, Trevor Bayne, No. 6 AdvoCare Ford, 495, , , , , , 13, Running
25) 34, Corey LaJoie, No. 72 TriStar Motorsports Chevrolet, 494, , , , , , 12, Running
26) 13, Erik Jones, No. 20 DeWalt Toyota, 494, 6, , , , , 16, Running
27) 35, * DJ Kennington, No. 96 Gaunt Brothers Racing Toyota, 482, , , , , , 10, Running
28) 32, Ty Dillon, No. 13 GEICO Chevrolet, 475, , , , , , 9, Running
29) 16, Chase Elliott, No. 9 Mountain Dew Baja Blast Chevrolet, 473, , , , , , 8, Running
30) 26, Martin Truex Jr., No. 78 Auto-Owners Insurance Toyota, 458, , , , , , 7, Accident
31) 28, Gray Gaulding, No. 23 Earthwater Toyota, 448, , , , , , 6, Running
32) 36, * Reed Sorenson, No. 55 VIPRacingExperience.com Chevrolet, 342, , , , , , 5, Accident
33) 38, * Chad Finchum(i), No. 66 Concrete North/Smithbilt Homes Toyota, 335, , , , , , 0, Accident
34) 15, Kasey Kahne, No. 95 WRL General Contractors Chevrolet, 236, , , , , , 3, Steering
35) 5, Ryan Blaney, No. 12 REV Ford, 117, , , 2, 100, , 2, Accident
36) 22, Chris Buescher, No. 37 Bush's Beans Chevrolet, 116, , , , , , 1, Accident
37) 37, Harrison Rhodes, No. 51 Industrial Construction Experts Inc. Chevrolet, 115, , , , , , 1, Accident
38) 9, Michael McDowell, No. 34 Love's Travel Stops Ford, 9, , , , , , 1, Accident
39) 27, Ross Chastain(i), No. 15 LowT Center Chevrolet, 3, , , , , , 0, Accident
(i) Ineligible for driver points in this series, (#) Rookie, (*) non franchise team

Total Race Length: 500 Laps - 266.5 Miles
Time of Race: 3 Hrs, 26 Mins, 25 Secs.
Average Speed: 77.465 MPH
Margin of Victory: 0.628 Seconds
Race Comments: Kyle Busch won the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway, his 45th Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series victory. Prior to the start of the race, the following cars dropped to the rear of the field under penalty for reasons indicated: #4- back-up car, 41 - back-up car and 48 - unapproved tire change. 
Caution Flags: 13 for 114 laps: Laps: 5-9 (No. 9, 24, 78, 19, 47, 15, 34, 38, 66 Incident Frontstretch [None]); 18-22 (No. 47,1 Incident Turn 2 [38]); 47-59 (Weather [Red flag 25:25] [55]); 62-67 (No. 17, 20 , 22 Incident Turn 4 [51]); 119-124 (No. 12, 1, 37, 38, 51, 6 Incident Turn 3 [Red flag 6:29] [00]); 127-134 (Stage 1 conclusion [1]); 156-169 (No. 6 Incident Turn 4 [Red Flag 26:54] [32]); 204-217 (Weather [32]); 252-261 (Stage 2 conclusion [1]); 325-329 (No. 42, 31 Incident Frontstretch [17]); 355-365 (No. 55 Incident Turn 4 [38]); 391-399 (Weather [11]); 471-478 (No. 2 Incident Turn 2 [19]).
Lead Changes: 18 among 8 drivers: Kyle Busch 1-16; R. Blaney 17-55; J. Logano 56; R. Blaney 57-117; B. Keselowski 118-130; K. Larson 131-243; B. Keselowski 244-261; D. Hamlin 262-265; B. Keselowski 266-292; K. Larson 293-324; Kyle Busch 325-360; D. Suarez 361-365; B. Keselowski 366-374; D. Wallace Jr. # 375-380; Kyle Busch 381-438; K. Larson 439-472; Kyle Busch 473; K. Larson 474-494; Kyle Busch 495-500.
American Ethanol Green Flag Restart Award: Kyle Larson, No. 42 
Busch Pole Award: Kyle Busch, No. 18 128.822 mph
Fastest Lap: Kyle Larson, No. 42 
Mahle Clevite Engine Builder of the Race: Toyota Racing Development (TRD), No. 18 
Moog Go the Extra Mile: Ryan Newman, No. 31 crew chief Lucas Lambert, 0.177 seconds
Sunoco Rookie of the Race: Darrell Wallace Jr, No. 43

Ron Fleshman with John Davison

RIS NASCAR Editor.  Has been with RIS since the middle 90's. Writes on each of the three main series of NASCAR.

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Volume 2018, Issue 4, Posted 5:20 PM, 04.16.2018