Busch wins with late pass

RICHMOND, Va. -- Four times this season, Jeff Gordon has been in position for a win. He came up short all four times.

Kyle Busch became the latest driver to deny Gordon a victory, passing him after the final restart Saturday night at Richmond International Raceway for his first win of the season.

For Busch, it snapped a 21-race losing streak, his longest since joining Joe Gibbs Racing in 2008.

"It stinks to not win every single weekend or not every 21 weekends or 21 races," Busch said. "But it certainly feels nice to come out here with another good win and get another good finish."

Gordon's drought reached 38 races. Since his last win, at Texas in April 2009, Gordon has finished second eight times.

"A little disappointed again that we are coming up short, but we are getting plenty of practice," Gordon said. "It's a little disappointing we haven't won some races yet. If we keep doing this, those will come. We've got to keep putting ourselves in position."

Busch embarrassed the field early -- at one point, only eight cars were on the lead lap -- but the racing evened out, and Busch's car faded a bit. That gave Gordon a chance to move to the front.

But three late cautions gave the challengers a chance to chase down Gordon, and Busch capitalized with a pass on the final restart.

"I don't even remember what just happened," Busch said. "I drove it down into Turn 1 and hoped it stuck. I knew I had to baby it into Turn 3 and finally got to clear Jeff. We set sail there from there."

Indeed he did, as Gordon had to hold off Kevin Harvick to keep second place.

"I've been doing this long enough to know that they don't give out trophies for leading any lap other than the last one," Gordon said.

The race was unbelievably fast at the start. Busch lapped car after car through the first 150 laps until only seven others were running with him. A pair of cautions for debris allowed everyone to catch up under NASCAR's "wave around" rule, and Busch finally had competition.

That could have been prevented had just one of the eight cars on the lead lap not pitted, an idea Gordon and Harvick dismissed because they needed to stay on sequence with Busch, the dominant car.

Busch led 221 of the first 229 laps before his Toyota began to fade. Gordon eventually took command, leading 144 late laps, but he knew he'd have to withstand a slew of late cautions to win.

After just three cautions through the first 364 laps, three came out in the final 36 laps.

"Of course, it's never easy," Gordon grumbled over his radio.

Harvick was third and was followed by Richard Childress Racing teammate Jeff Burton as Chevrolets finished second through fourth.

Carl Edwards was fifth in a Ford, followed by Juan Pablo Montoya, Martin Truex Jr., Ryan Newman and Marcos Ambrose. Jimmie Johnson and Denny Hamlin rounded out the top 10.

■ INDYCAR -- At Kansas City, Kan., Scott Dixon took an early lead and never gave the other drivers much of a chance, cruising to his second straight IndyCar Series victory at Kansas Speedway.

Dixon led the final 150 of the 200 laps on the 1.5-mile oval. Runner-up Dario Franchitti finished more than three seconds behind. Tony Kanaan was third.

Pole sitter Ryan Briscoe finished sixth, and Danica Patrick was 11th.

■ NHRA -- At Madison, Ill., Cory McClenathan held off defending Top Fuel champion Tony Schumacher to gain the top qualifying spot in the NHRA Midwest Nationals.

John Force (Funny Car), Mike Edwards (Pro Stock) and Hector Arana (Pro Stock Motorcycle) took the top spots in their classes.