He won both poles over the weekend and after his weekend sweep a year ago, Busch has taken the last four NASCAR races at the historic Brickyard.
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Busch won with a speed of 184.634 miles per hour.
IN native and fan favorite Tony Stewart challenged for the lead early before drawing a pit road speeding penalty and finished eleventh in his final Brickyard 400 while Jeff Gordon, substituting for the injured Dale Earnhardt jr., finished thirteenth in his first race since stepping out from behind the wheel last season.
Without a doubt, it has been neat seeing Gordon back on the track the last two days, albeit in the No. 88 vehicle usually driven by Dale Earnhardt Jr. while Earnhardt recovers from a concussion. “I knew when we got the checkered we just didn’t want to come in just yet”. I hope he’s doing good.
As it turned out, Busch had plenty of fuel to finish off his historic weekend at Indy.
“What a class act he is”, Gordon said of Stewart, who is retiring at the end of the season. At one point, he had two-thirds of the field lapped.
Kyle Busch completed his domination at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway with a runaway win Sunday at the 23rd running of the Brickyard 400, winning the race for a second straight year.
Now, Busch is in flawless position to become the second Cup driver to win the 400 back-to-back.
Gordon also acknowledged it will be odd to race against Chase Elliott, who took over in Gordon’s familiar No. 24 vehicle after the 2015 season finale at Homestead.
But Stewart thought he missed an opportunity to stop Busch.
WHO’S IN/WHO’S OUT: Gordon easily made it in despite having only one day in the No. 88 auto.
It wasn’t their first extra lap of the day, though.
“Well, Tony and I have gone through a lot over the years”, Gordon, who, like Stewart grew up in IN worshipping The Speedway, said. I feel like we had a really good tire test here. The only driver who did not qualify was Josh Wise.
The top five finishers were Matt Kenseth, Jimmie Johnson, Denny Hamlin and Kyle Larson. Only Hendrick Motorsports (nine victories) has earned more Brickyard victories.
How Busch Won: He was dominant for sure, but late race restarts were the key to Busch winning the race. Chase Elliott will start 15th and Kasey Kahne qualified 26th. Stewart, a three-time Cup champion, has followed up his Sonoma victory with a fifth-place finish at Kentucky and a second last week at New Hampshire. After finishing 25th, he climbed out of the auto and apologized to his primary sponsor and Cup fans for not getting the job done Saturday. He still doesn’t have a Brickyard win. Jamie McMurray and Ryan Newman were involved in the incident on lap 164 and then thanks to the Bowyer-Bayne tangle, the race went 10 laps over its originally scheduled distance to lap 170. Paul Menard was third, 1.338 seconds off the pace.
But over the past five years, the two IN drivers with similar backgrounds developed a bond and became close enough friends that they wanted to add another memorable chapter to the long history at this 2.5-mile oval.
Rosberg on F1 pole: BUDAPEST, Hungary – Nico Rosberg of Mercedes will start from pole position at today’s Hungarian Grand Prix after a wet, crash-filled qualifying session.
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Rosberg’s fourth pole position of the season – and 26th of his career – was confirmed later Saturday by officials after reviewing whether the overall leader had slowed down enough during a yellow flag situation. And he’ll also get a chance to work on his restarts before filling in for Junior again at Pocono next week.
