Kyle Busch spoiled teammate, Denny Hamlin’s dream of a home-town hat trick.
For the third year in-a-row Kyle Busch won the Spring Sprint Cup race at Richmond International Raceway holding off Hamlin, a Virginia native, for the win.
"I learned from Denny Hamlin last fall, and I’m not going to say what I learned. He might know, but we did a good job at doing what we needed to do there early in the run and once we got out and had to go through traffic and stuff like that," Kyle Busch said.
Denny Hamlin, winless in NASCAR’s top division in 2011, had won a charity race, at the three-quarter mile oval, on Thursday night and the Nationwide Series race on Friday night.
Although he didn’t return to the winner’s circle Denny Hamlin reacted "I’ll be honest with you, I’m happy to get a good solid run. Happy for our teammate. A one-two finish is great for Joe Gibbs Racing. Kyle finished second to me here last time in this race so I’m not disappointed. We finally had a race where nothing really went wrong. We just got beat by our teammate today."
Kasey Kahne, who had additional knee surgery after the Talladega race, came home third, making it a top three finish for Toyotas. "We weren’t quite good enough for the Gibbs cars. They were really good tonight. It was still a good run. The guys did a great job and it was nice to get a top five," he said.
After a relatively caution-free race Saturday night is for fighting broke out. It started with a "have at it, boys," moment when, on lap 238, Juan Pablo Montoya intentionally spun Ryan Newman who had caused Montoya, the pole winner some rear end damage earlier in the race.
For the third year in-a-row Kyle Busch won the Spring Sprint Cup race at Richmond International Raceway holding off Hamlin, a Virginia native, for the win.
"I learned from Denny Hamlin last fall, and I’m not going to say what I learned. He might know, but we did a good job at doing what we needed to do there early in the run and once we got out and had to go through traffic and stuff like that," Kyle Busch said.
Denny Hamlin, winless in NASCAR’s top division in 2011, had won a charity race, at the three-quarter mile oval, on Thursday night and the Nationwide Series race on Friday night.
Although he didn’t return to the winner’s circle Denny Hamlin reacted "I’ll be honest with you, I’m happy to get a good solid run. Happy for our teammate. A one-two finish is great for Joe Gibbs Racing. Kyle finished second to me here last time in this race so I’m not disappointed. We finally had a race where nothing really went wrong. We just got beat by our teammate today."
 |
| Kyle Busch ahead of Denny Hamlin - Photo: kylebusch.com |
Kasey Kahne, who had additional knee surgery after the Talladega race, came home third, making it a top three finish for Toyotas. "We weren’t quite good enough for the Gibbs cars. They were really good tonight. It was still a good run. The guys did a great job and it was nice to get a top five," he said.
After a relatively caution-free race Saturday night is for fighting broke out. It started with a "have at it, boys," moment when, on lap 238, Juan Pablo Montoya intentionally spun Ryan Newman who had caused Montoya, the pole winner some rear end damage earlier in the race.