Busch Snags 18th NASCAR Victory Of The Season

FONTANA, Calif. — Give Kyle Busch credit for being a quick study.
Nudged out of the way and deprived of a victory by Carl Edwards in the Aug. 23 NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway, Busch didn’t let Edwards anywhere near his rear bumper in the closing laps of Saturday night’s Camping World RV Service 300 NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Auto Club Speedway.
After a restart with eight laps remaining, Busch pulled away, as he had done consistently all night long, to hold off his nemesis and win the race under caution when Josh Wise wrecked on the white-flag lap.
The victory was Busch’s seventh of the season in the series and the 18th of his career. Busch now has 18 victories in NASCAR’s top three series this season — eight in Cup, seven in Nationwide and three in the Craftsman Truck Series. He now has won in all three series at Auto Club Speedway. Mark Martin is the only other driver to have won in all three series at the two-mile superspeedway.
Busch led 144 of the 150 laps and became the first driver to win from the pole in 17 Nationwide events at the track.
“This thing was flawless tonight,” Busch said of his No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. “It was just amazing.”
Edwards’ runner-up finish allowed the defending series champion to retain third in the standings, 222 points behind Clint Bowyer, who finished seventh. Brian Vickers ran third, followed by Jeff Burton, Jamie McMurray and Joey Logano.
Debris from Jason Leffler’s Toyota caused the fourth caution of the race on lap 138 and set up an eight-lap run that ended short of the finish line thanks to Wise’s accident. Busch pulled away to a lead of more than .6 second on lap 143 and remained comfortably ahead the rest of the way until the race was slowed by the fifth and final caution.
Busch dedicated the victory to crew chief Jason Ratcliff, who, along with six other members of the Joe Gibbs Racing organization, is serving an indefinite suspension for trying to manipulate their car’s horsepower readings two weeks ago at Michigan Int’l Speedway. Doug Hewitt is serving as crew chief for the No. 18 Toyota during the suspension.
“These guys are pumped up, they’re excited. It doesn’t matter if you win a late model race, a Nationwide race, truck race or Cup race — you never know when your last one is going to be, so this one means a lot,” Busch said. “These crew guys have had a lot of adversity on them in the past few weeks and they don’t deserve the bad rap they’ve got.  I don’t care about my bad rap, but these guys here are the ones that work hard at the shop and do all the hard work, so I really have to thank these guys.”
An electrical problem forced Brad Keselowski to the garage on lap 106, and after repairs, he returned to the track 21 laps down. With a 33rd-place finish, Keselowski remains second in the standings, but 204 points behind Bowyer.