Trucks - Busch Finds a Way to Win at Kentucky

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It didn't seem like Kyle Busch had the truck to win, but, after some great late restarts and some misfortune for most of the other contenders, he cruised to victory in Thursday night's University of Northwestern Ohio 225 at Kentucky Speedway.

Busch started in the rear of the field after missing the drivers' meeting, but quickly charged toward the front, finally taking the lead for the first time on Lap 61.  He led twice for 61 laps, including the last 18.  Toward the end, his was not the fastest truck, but most of the other contenders fell by the wayside.

Polesitter Johnny Sauter passed Busch for the lead on Lap 103, but broke a rear axle while trying to leave his pit on a green-flag stop on Lap 124.  About eight laps later, Austin Dillon challenged Busch for the lead, but his hood came loose and folded back over his windshield.  He had to pit to have it cut loose.

With ten laps to go, Charlie Vest spun.  He didn't hit anything, but NASCAR finally had to throw the caution because he was blocking the entrance to pit road and couldn't get the engine restarted.  About the time the caution waved, Steve Arpin spun straight toward Vest, but he finally had it running again and moved out of the way in time to avoid the collision.

That set up a restart with five laps to go.  Busch got a great restart, but Joey Coulter did not.  He dropped back and bunched the rest of the field up.  Nelson Piquet Jr., another contender, got pushed back in the middle of a three-wide pack.  He got into the rear of the other Brazilian in the race, Miguel Paludo, and they both went hard into the wall.

That set up the green-white-checkered finish.  Again, Busch got a great jump, but Jason White did not.  Busch cruised to victory.  Parker Klingerman, Brendan Gaughan and Todd Bodine got around White to finish second, third and fourth respectively.  White came home fifth.  (Race results)

It was Busch's first win at Kentucky Speedway, his fifth Camping World Truck Series win of the season and the 29th of his career.  It was his 98th national series win, third most all-time.  The race went 152 laps, two past the scheduled distance.

Ron Hornaday made the bonehead move of the race.  After a restart on Lap 76, he was challenging Cole Whitt for fourth place.  Hornaday got loose and came up into Whitt and they both went into the wall.  That would have been the end of it if Hornaday had stayed on the brakes, but he tried to straighten out his heavily damaged truck and keep moving.  He slammed Jack Smith into the wall, then slid down the track and took out John King and Josh Richards.

The series points standings were shuffled a bit.  Sauter stayed in first, and even gained three more points on Whitt (-23).  Dillon (-25) moved up a spot to third.  James Buescher (-32) and Klingerman (-35) each moved up three spots to fourth and fifth respectively as Hornaday (-37) dropped three spots to sixth.

Trucks -- Black Flag Gives Hornaday a Texas Win

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Ron Hornaday won the WinStar World Casino 400k at Texas Motor Speedway Friday night when Johnny Sauter was black-flagged for changing lanes on the final restart.

Sauter took the lead from Hornaday on Lap 130 (of a scheduled 167), but was penalized for moving down in front of Hornaday on a green-white-checkered restart before crossing the start/finish line.  Both Sauter and Hornaday spun their tires on the restart.  Sauter finished ahead of the field, but was shown the black flag at the stripe; he was scored with a 22nd-place finish, the last car on the lead lap.  Sauter later contended that he left Hornaday a lane to race in, but doesn't have much of a case.

It was Hornaday's 48th career Camping World Truck Series win, the first of the season, and his third at the track.  The race went one lap beyond the scheduled distance.

Since this week's Cup race is 1500 miles away in Pocono, this was a exclusively a Truck Series regular affair.  Rookie Parker Klingerman, making just his tenth career series start, finished second.  David Mayhew was third for a new career-best finish.  Brian Ickler recovered from a spin of Lap 50 that put him a lap down to finish fourth in his first start of the season.  Rookie Joey Coulter was fifth, matching his career-best finish set last week at Kansas.  (Race results)

Sauter still managed to increase his lead in the series points standings by eight points.  He now leads Cole Whitt, who finished 28th, by 20 points.  Hornaday (-33) jumped three spots into third, followed by Austin Dillon (-35) and Matt Crafton (-41).

Trucks -- Bowyer Dominates at Kansas

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Kansas native Clint Bowyer dominated Saturday's O'Reilly Auto Parts 250 at Kansas Speedway.  Bowyer led 124 (of 167) laps and cruised to a 1.695-second victory over Johnny Sauter.

Bowyer picked up his third career victory in just his eleventh start in the Camping World Truck Series.  It was his first start at Kansas Speedway.  It was his first victory in front of his hometown crowd in any NASCAR national series.  He has two second place finishes at the track -- one in the 2007 Cup race and one in the 2008 Nationwide race.

Bowyer's only real snag occurred on a restart on Lap 112.  Bowyer pitted and took four tires and enough fuel to finish the race.  With the cars that stayed out and those that took just two tires, Bowyer was mired back in 11th position on the restart, but he moved quickly through the traffic and regained the lead on Lap 122.

Bowyer led the final 46 laps.  He briefly battled for the lead with Sauter on the final restart on Lap 138 before pulling away to the easy victory.

Todd Bodine finished third, followed by James Buescher and Joey Coulter.  (Race results)

Sauter takes over the lead in the series points standings after Cole Whitt's 15th-place finish.  Sauter leads Whitt by 12 points.  Austin Dillon (-30), who finished 12th, moved ahead of Matt Crafton (-32) to take over the third spot.  Timothy Peters (-47) rounds out the Top Five.

A Qualifying Tweek

NASCAR is still fine-tuning the new rules on qualifying order.  On Tuesday they announced a change for the Nationwide and Truck Series effective this weekend.

The order teams qualified used to be set by a random draw.  At the start of the season, NASCAR changed the rules, setting the qualifying order by practice speeds with the slowest cars going out first.  The cars were split into two groups -- the cars that were locked into the race qualified before the go-or-go-homers.  Now, in the Nationwide and Truck Series, starting this weekend at Chicagoland and Kansas respectively, the entire field will be sorted for qualifying based on practice speeds.

Update:  NASCAR later announced that the Sprint Cup Series will also make the change, but it won't happen until next weekend at Pocono.

NASCAR: NCWTS -- Martinsville: Kroger 200 Results

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Ron Hornaday passed Kyle Busch with three laps to go in regulation and held him off on a green-white-checkered restart to win Saturday's Camping World Truck Series race, the Kroger 200, at Martinsville.  It was Hornaday's first win ever at Martinsville, his second of the season, and the 47th of his career.

Hornaday passed Busch on Lap 197 (of 200) just before the 11th and final caution of the day came out for Cody Cambensy's spin.  NASCAR officials initially had Busch ahead for the final restart, but went to the television replays and reversed themselves.  The race went six laps past the scheduled distance.

Todd Bodine, who was racing just hours after the death of his mother, led much of the second half of the race.  He was passed by Busch with 25 laps to go and Hornaday soon followed.  Bodine hung on to finish third, followed by Jason White and Aric Almirola.  (Race results)

Bodine now leads Almirola by 282 points with just four races remaining.  If Almirola were to win all four of the remaining races, Bodine would need to average just a 12th-place finish to take home the championship trophy.  (Points standings)

Five drivers made their series debuts.  B. J. McLeod finished 17th, C. E. Falk 25th, Amber Cope 26th, Angela Cope 30th, and Cambensy 32nd.  The Cope twins were two of a record four women in the race with Johanna Long and Jennifer Jo Cobb.

NASCAR: NCWTS -- Las Vegas: Smith's Food & Drug Stores 350 Results

Image via WikipediaRookie Austin Dillon passed James Buescher with 35 laps to go in Saturday night's Smith's 350 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, then pulled away to win by a commanding 5.588-second margin.

Dillon and Buescher battled over much of the final third of the race, but Dillon finally got around him for good one lap after a restart on Lap 111.  Buescher stayed on his bumper until he lost second place to Johnny Sauter on another restart on Lap 119.  After that, Dillon, in clean air, pulled away for the victory.

It was Dillon's second Truck Series victory; his first came at Iowa in July, ten races ago.  Sauter finished second, followed by Buescher, series leader Todd Bodine and Matt Crafton.  (Race results)

Bodine gained five points over Aric Almirola, who finished sixth, in the series standings.  Bodine now leads Almirola by 262 points with five races to go.  Johnny Sauter (-300) is third.  With the win, Dillon (-388) climbed two spots to fourth, the highest ranking of his young career.  Timothy Peter, who finished 26th, dropped one spot to fifth, 423 points behind Bodine.

NASCAR: Loudon Results

Image via WikipediaNSCS: the Sylvania 300

Clint Bowyer's fuel gamble paid off.  Tony Stewart's did not.

Coming out of Turn Four with the lead on Lap 299 (of 300) with the white flag in sight, Tony Stewart ran out of gas.  Clint Bowyer, who was also running on fumes, flew past him on the frontstretch and held off Denny Hamlin over the final lap to win the first race in the 2010 Chase for the Sprint Cup, Sunday's Sylvania 300 at Loudon, New Hampshire.

Bowyer ran out of gas while doing his victory burnout and had to be pushed to Victory Lane by a wrecker.

Bowyer didn't back into the win.  He dominated the race, leading seven times for a race-high 177 laps, but a sputtering carburetor gave him problems on restarts, forcing him to drop back until he could get the car up to speed.

Denny Hamlin also had issues.  On Lap 214, Hamlin was rolling through Turn Four when Carl Edwards slid up the track into him causing him to spin.  That dropped Hamlin from third to 22nd, but sent him to pit road, allowing him to avoid the fuel issues of the cars that were ahead of him at the end.

Bowyer crossed the finish line 0.477 seconds ahead of Hamlin.  Jamie McMurray finished third, followed by Dale Earnhardt Jr.  Kevin Harvick struggled all day with handling problems and slow pit stops, but rallied to finish fifth.  Stewart coasted around to finish 24th, the last car on the lead lap, a swing of 94 valuable points in the championship race.  (Race results)

The win snapped an 88-race winless streak for Bowyer dating back to the May 2008 race at Richmond.  It was Bowyer's third Cup win and his second at Loudon.  His first Cup win came in the 2007 Sylvania 300.

Kurt Busch had an ill-handling car and was involved in two incidents.  On Lap 221, he got together with Jeff Burton and they both spun.  That resulted in Jimmie Johnson getting into the rear of Kyle Busch, causing those two to spin as well.  Later, on Lap 241, Kurt Busch slid up the track into Joey Logano, putting him into the wall.

Johnson later developed a vibration and had to make an unscheduled stop for tires, putting him a lap down.  He couldn't get the lap back and finished 25th, worst of the Chase drivers.

Burton ran out of gas seconds before Stewart, but got it re-fired enough to finish 15th.

Matt Kenseth struggled mid-pack all race and was spun by Brad Keselowski  .  He finished 23rd.

With one Chase race down and nine to go to crown a champion, Hamlin stretched his lead in the point standings to 35.  He now leads Bowyer, who moved up ten spots into second place.   Harvick (-45) remains in third.  After finishing ninth, Kyle Busch (-62) remains in fourth.  Jeff Gordon (-75) finished sixth and moved up three spots to fifth.  Johnson (-92) dropped five spots to seventh.  Stewart (-124) dropped five spots to eleventh.


NCWTS:  TheRaceDayRaffleSeries.com 175

Kyle Busch drove into James Buescher and the wall to win Saturday's Camping World Truck Series race at Loudon.

The race was a battle between Busch and Kevin Harvick, but Buescher snuck in there at the end and almost came away with his Truck Series win.

On Lap 166 (of 175), Harvick forced Busch up the track and Buescher dove underneath the two to take the lead.  Busch took the lead and the race on a restart on Lap 174.  Buescher restarted on the outside and led Busch into Turn One, but Busch battled ahead coming out of Turn Two.  Before he was clear, he moved up the track into Buescher's left front, then slapped the outside wall.

Busch beat Buescher to the finish by 0.280 seconds.  Harvick, who traded the lead with Busch fourteen times, finished third, followed by Matt Crafton and Austin Dillon.  (Race results)

After the race, Buescher took exception to Busch's tactics:

"He just went to the fence," Buescher said. "He wasn't clear at all. He drove like he had no truck on his outside, and he hit my left front and ended up in the wall. He just drove us dirty and got the win, and we hung in for a second-place finish."

 Todd Bodine finished ninth and has a commanding 257 point lead over Aric Almirola, who finished eighth, with just six races to go.  (Point standings)