Kyle Busch ran away from Brad Keselowski in a green-white-checkered shootout in the NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
NASCAR’s enfant terrible erased a two-lap deficit to take his fifth Nationwide win of the season. The victory marked his last appearance in NASCAR’s second-tier series.
Still the JGR Toyota driver has his sights on bigger things, as Kyle explained “I thought we had a great year last year in winning the championship, setting a lot of records and doing what we did then. We knew that we could do the same thing with Jason (Ratcliff, crew chief) coming back and all the guys staying the same. I felt like we had a really good race team. I’d like to do it, but you have to win a Cup championship, I think, well, I know.”
The key to his victory was a bit of strategy which called for him to stay out during the last caution.
“Scanning the 22 (Brad Keselowski), I knew that they were going to do whatever we did. After watching the All-Star race last week, I knew or I felt like that if it came to that and we were leading the race, if the car was handling okay that was going to be the call,” Busch said.
Keselowski, who drives a Dodge for Penske Racing said” Kyle didn’t take any tires. It was all about the restart and he just beat us.” Then added “I felt like if we had one more lap, we had a shot at it.
With Busch’s departure from the Nationwide series Keselowski has mixed emotions.
He said, ironically, “I’m really going to miss him (Kyle). We bring out the best and worse in each other.”
Joe Logano finished third.
Keselowski holds the series lead by one pointsover the departing Busch. Kevin Harvick is third 94 points in arrears.
NASCAR’s enfant terrible erased a two-lap deficit to take his fifth Nationwide win of the season. The victory marked his last appearance in NASCAR’s second-tier series.
Still the JGR Toyota driver has his sights on bigger things, as Kyle explained “I thought we had a great year last year in winning the championship, setting a lot of records and doing what we did then. We knew that we could do the same thing with Jason (Ratcliff, crew chief) coming back and all the guys staying the same. I felt like we had a really good race team. I’d like to do it, but you have to win a Cup championship, I think, well, I know.”
The key to his victory was a bit of strategy which called for him to stay out during the last caution.
“Scanning the 22 (Brad Keselowski), I knew that they were going to do whatever we did. After watching the All-Star race last week, I knew or I felt like that if it came to that and we were leading the race, if the car was handling okay that was going to be the call,” Busch said.
Keselowski, who drives a Dodge for Penske Racing said” Kyle didn’t take any tires. It was all about the restart and he just beat us.” Then added “I felt like if we had one more lap, we had a shot at it.
With Busch’s departure from the Nationwide series Keselowski has mixed emotions.
He said, ironically, “I’m really going to miss him (Kyle). We bring out the best and worse in each other.”
Joe Logano finished third.
Keselowski holds the series lead by one pointsover the departing Busch. Kevin Harvick is third 94 points in arrears.