Kyle Busch’s Nationwide win puts trifecta in reach

FORT WORTH, Texas -- Kyle Busch keeps extending streaks at Texas Motor Speedway in search of a NASCAR first.

Busch won his fourth consecutive Nationwide Series race at the 11/2-mile, high-banked track Saturday. The dominating victory in the O'Reilly Challenge came a day after he won his fifth truck race in his past five starts in the series.

He will try to complete an unprecedented trifecta today and become the first driver to win all three of NASCAR's national series on the same weekend.

"I hope it happens; that would be the greatest thing," Busch said. "The hardest one is the last one."

Busch qualified fifth for today's race at Texas, where he is 0-for-9 in Sprint Cup races and finished 18th in April.

When Busch climbed out of his car in Victory Lane on Saturday, he said he was "sorry" he won and would make it three in a row. When asked later about what reaction he expected if he did pull it off, he said he was "messing with the fans" with his comment and wasn't sure.

"People would get tired of buying tickets to the Kyle Busch show, I guess," he said.

After taking the lead on the 11th of 200 laps, when he swung his No. 18 Toyota around polesitter Matt Kenseth in the first turn, Busch went on to lead 179 laps and win by 3.154 seconds over Casey Mears, who was filling in for Jeff Burton in the No. 29 Chevrolet.

This is the 28th time in his career Busch has run all three series the same weekend. This is the seventh time this year, and twice he won two races -- at California in February and Bristol in August -- without being able to get the third. In California, he won the Camping World Truck Series and the Nationwide races before finishing third in Sprint Cup.

"Maybe we can come up two spots better here," he said.

It was Busch's eighth Nationwide victory this year and extended his points lead to 272 over second-place Carl Edwards with two races left. Busch, who has won 29 times in 171 career Nationwide starts, has to finish 15th next week at Phoenix to clinch his first NASCAR championship in any series.

NASCAR said after the race that the Busch team faces a potential points penalty for an improperly secured weight that was found on the No. 18 during an initial inspection at the beginning of the race week.

Edwards, who had to start at the back of the field after making adjustments on the car during the impound period, finished ninth.

Jason Leffler got loose in the closing laps and took third after being passed by Mears. Kenseth was fourth, Brad Keselowski fifth and Kevin Harvick, the only other four-time Nationwide winner at Texas, sixth.

Busch has won 19 NASCAR races this season, including seven of his 13 truck starts to go with four Sprint Cup wins.