Kyle Busch earns Truck Series win

AVONDALE, Ariz. -- Las Vegas native Kyle Busch ended two weeks of frustration Friday by leading the final 42 laps to win the Truck Series race at Phoenix International Raceway.

Championship contender Ron Hornaday finished second, and series points leader Mike Skinner was eighth. Skinner started with a 57-point lead over Hornaday, but the margin was trimmed to 29 heading into next week's finale at Homestead, Fla.

The victory was Busch's second of the season and second in three races. But the celebration on his Atlanta win two weeks ago was shortened when he lost the Nextel Cup event two days later because of a slow final pit stop.

He then headed to Texas hoping to rebound, and looked to be headed toward an easy win in the Truck race until his motor blew halfway through the race. He was a disappointing second in the Busch Series race the next day and faded to fourth in the Cup event after leading 153 laps.

So Busch arrived in Arizona hoping to end what he considered a four-race losing streak. He passed Mike Bliss on a restart to take the lead and never looked back as Bliss and Hornaday battled the rest of the way for second and third.

But Busch said the win didn't erase all the aggravation of the past two weeks.

"I don't have the trophies on my mantel, they went to someone else," he said. "Yes, it's a plus. It's great to come out here and win a race, any race. If you participate in a race, you want to win it."

Busch will compete in today's Busch Series race in Avondale before flying to Las Vegas for tonight's Fall Classic at Las Vegas Motor Speedway's Bullring, where he'll compete in a 140-lap Super Late Models race. He then will race Sunday in Avondale in the Nextel Cup race, for which he qualified 38th Friday.

• NEXTEL CUP -- At Avondale, Ariz., it was a good day for Indianapolis 500 winners in qualifying.

Sam Hornish Jr. joined Jacques Villeneuve and Juan Pablo Montoya as former Indy 500 winners to earn a spot in Sunday's race -- marking the first time in NASCAR history three former Indy champions will be in the field.

Carl Edwards won his first pole in almost two years by turning a fast lap of 132.773 mph around the mile oval in his Roush Fenway Ford. Martin Truex Jr., who had the pole last week at Texas and finished third, qualified second at 132.758.

It was Edwards' first pole start since Homestead in 2005.

Jeff Gordon, who trails Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson by 30 points in the Cup standings, qualified third. Gordon is a three-time Phoenix pole winner and won here in April to tie the late Dale Earnhardt on NASCAR's career wins list.

Johnson will start sixth.

Kyle Busch's older brother, Kurt, qualified ninth.

Hornish, a three-time IndyCar Series champion, will be 26th on the starting grid in his Cup debut. He failed to qualify in his first six attempts, and his performance came one day after he said he will switch full time to NASCAR next season.

Villeneuve, who made his Cup debut at Talladega last month, will start 27th. Montoya, in his first full NASCAR season, took the 14th position.

• CHAMP CAR -- At Mexico City, four-time champion Sebastien Bourdais set a track record at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez with a lap time of 1 minute, 24.698 seconds in the first qualifying session for Sunday's Grand Prix.

Bourdais, who next season will race for Scuderia Toro Rosso in Formula One, broke the record of 1:24.801 set in 2006 by Justin Wilson to secure a place in the first row.

Bourdais wrapped up his fourth Champ Car series title in the last race in Australia.