Martin Truex Jr. dominated the Sprint Cup race at Kansas Speedway on Saturday night but a loose wheel following a pit stop with 52 laps to go forced the veteran to accept another hard-luck defeat in a season already defined by them.
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Once more, he was leading the most laps and looked to have a NASCAR Sprint Cup win in hand.
Brad Keselowski doesn’t want to take all the credit for wholesale changes to the All-Star Race format.
It began in earnest last fall at Kansas, when Logano bumped Kenseth out of the way with five laps remaining to win the race.
Perhaps that’s because Kansas tends to be a bit more predictable.
It turned out to be a harbinger of things to come.
Busch, who started the night race from sixth position, led for just 69 laps of the caution-filled GoBowing 400 event but went on to claim the chequered flag. He wouldn’t be the top-finishing rookie, however, as Ryan Blaney would charge late to a fifth-place finish, his second career top five and first at an intermediate track. In case you are wondering, Kyle Busch finished second in the last race held at the DE race track, in October. “I appreciate how nice it is to reel off several wins like this”. If it wasn’t for a fluke tire-change issue, he might have been the one celebrating the end of his misfortune there.
Kyle Busch does a burnout in front of the grandstand after winning the Go Bowling 400 Saturday night at the Kansas Speedway in Kansas City, Kan. “I don’t think I was all the ideas but maybe the one that seemed to catch everyone’s attention”.
Gibbs knows something about dominance, of course. Drivers can cover the one-mile lap in less than 23 seconds at a speeds in excess of 160 miles per hour.
This feels like uncharted territory, though.
“I couldn’t believe it”, said Truex, who led for a race-high 172 laps. Teammate Denny Hamlin also won the season-opening Daytona 500. How much fall-off will there be, and what will the effect of old tires be on lap times?
“I just got loose”. “I thought we were as good as the 18 if we could have had position”. In 2011, after racing with Joey Coulter in the Truck Series race at Kansas, Busch was allegedly punched by Richard Childress, Coulter’s team owner.
AJ Allmendinger was involved in one of the pileups and felt sore for days afterward, even though he still managed to finish 14th and picked up some ground in the points standings.
In addition, he was won 80 in the Xfinity Series and 45 Camping World Truck Series races.
The year before? Busch was hit from behind by Ryan Newman and crashed out of another race.
His most recent previous close call came at Texas Motor Speedway, where he led 141 laps. “It’s nice to have that monkey off your back”.
“I was going in there three-wide”, said Hamlin.
In truth, Busch has been steadily building toward his breakthrough in the heartland.
“We’re going to win some races, for sure”, he said.
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Heading into tonight’s race, Kevin Harvick is the points leader in the Sprint Cup Series for 2016.
