Kyle Busch posts first win in Texas
FORT WORTH, Texas — After all the laps Kyle Busch has led in the NASCAR Nationwide Series this season, he finally led the only one that really matters.
Busch won the O’Reilly 300 at Texas Motor Speedway in dominating fashion Saturday, leading 126 of the 200 laps and finishing more than a second ahead of Jeff Burton.
With an average speed of 151.708 mph, it was the fastest Nationwide race at the 11/2-mile high-banked track.
“I never won here, and I proved that. I don’t know where Victory Lane is,” said Busch, a Las Vegas native. “I got lost getting here.”
The caution flag came out with 10 laps left after Kyle Krisiloff crashed on the backstretch. Instead of pitting for new tires, Busch kept his Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota on the track.
On the restart with seven laps to go, Busch stretched his gap ahead of Burton’s Chevrolet. Clint Bowyer, the series points leader, had two fresh tires and gained two spots in the closing laps to finish third in another Chevrolet.
Burton was heard on the radio during the closing laps expressing regret about not pitting for new tires.
Busch started 31st and worked through the field to lead four times, including the final 43 laps after an earlier stretch of 60 straight laps interrupted only by the last series of green-flag stops.
Busch had led almost one-third of the 1,066 laps (345) in the first six races this season without being there at the end.
It was the 12th Nationwide win for Busch and first at Texas, where he was the runner-up to Kevin Harvick last fall.
Less than two months into the 2008 NASCAR season, the 22-year-old Busch has victories in all three major series. He has a Sprint Cup victory and is fifth in that series, and is the Craftsman Truck Series points leader with two wins.
• IRL — At St. Petersburg, Fla., sitting on stage after qualifying for the Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, Tony Kanaan and Helio Castroneves looked to their left, and there, appearing comfortable in their new surroundings, were former Champ Car drivers Will Power and Justin Wilson.
“I guess we better get used to this,” said longtime IRL IndyCar Series star Castroneves, the two-time defending winner of the St. Pete street race. “These guys are very good road racers.”
It’s only the second event of the new unified era of American open-wheel racing, with Champ Car melded into the IRL and nine newcomers among the 26 drivers racing here. With the more familiar surroundings of a street course, after last week’s rough introduction to oval racing, the transition drivers had a better chance to show their talent.
While former IRL champion Kanaan won the pole in IndyCar’s new grueling three-session qualifying format, Power took the outside spot on the front row, and Wilson was third, sharing the second row with Castroneves. Ryan Briscoe was fifth and Ryan Hunter-Reay sixth on the 1.8-mile, 14-turn downtown circuit.
• FORMULA ONE — At Sakhir, Bahrain, Robert Kubica of BMW Sauber edged Felipe Massa of Ferrari to take the pole position for the Bahrain Grand Prix.
Overall leader Lewis Hamilton of McLaren will start third, and Kimi Raikkonen had the fourth-best qualifying time in his Ferrari. McLaren’s Heikki Kovalainen rounded out the top five for today’s race at the Bahrain International Circuit.
• SUPERCROSS — At Irving, Texas, Chad Reed raced to his eighth Monster Energy AMA Supercross victory of the season, beating fellow Yamaha rider Josh Hill by 1.872 seconds at Texas Stadium.
Honda’s Davi Millsaps was third, followed by Honda’s Kevin Windham.