NASCAR
Kyle Busch Earns 66th Career Truck Series Victory at Texas
FORT WORTH, Texas – The box score for Friday night’s SpeedyCash.com 250 from Texas Motor Speedway may look predictable and drama-free. That was anything but the case for the Texas Truckers though. Many drivers successfully kept Kyle Busch on his toes all night long. After being second on the last restart, Busch snaked his way forward and held off every charge until the checkers. Busch extends his all time Truck win total to 66, and now ties Todd Bodine as top dog in Texas.
Kyle Busch stole Stage 1, making a late pass over last week’s winner Christian Eckes. The No. 7 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet kept the lead on pit road, and took a stage sweep. Busch initially took off in Stage 3 as well, but a few late cautions kept the field tight together.
A restart inside of 20 laps left would be a very short-lived green flag run. Multiple trucks got together back in the pack, just as Eckes inched ahead of Busch up front. On a 10 to go restart, it was the No. 19 with position over the 7.
Although Eckes initially cleared on the restart, the lead would not be his for long. Busch came storming back around Eckes’ outside to retake command and set off for victory lane.
Despite a last lap charge by Corey Heim, Busch was not to be denied a dominant Texas two step into victory lane. His sixth Lone Star State win in a Truck, Rowdy now owns 20 Texas checkered flags.
“Great team, everybody here at Spire, appreciate Brian Pattie and everyone that was able to work so hard preparing a really fast Realtree Silverado,” Busch said. “Thanks to Team Chevy, thanks to Realtree, their first NASCAR win. Mr. Jordan’s at home, I know Tyler’s here, so exciting to have those guys with us. Going to go celebrate in victory lane and carry these bright colors there. I told them I wanted to do it for them, so glad we could.”
“They definitely kept me honest, I’ll give them that. Corey (Heim) kept us honest right there. he started to find that top over (in turns one and two) and get some momentum. I tried it with three to go and I chattered really bad. My front just wasn’t working over there. I needed more laps on my tires to be able to make that work. But he made it, got to my rear bumper getting into (turn) three, and I just kinda was like ‘I don’t know which way to go’ so I ran the middle. I darted bottom, then he slipped up top. I guess we had enough gap after that.”
Busch and Eckes were only separated by a tenth at the checkers, one of Texas’ closest finishes ever. Behind them, Nick Sanchez, Christian Eckes, and Zane Smith were the top-five. The rest of the top-10 were Daniel Dye, Taylor Gray, Tanner Gray, Stefan Parsons, and Ty Majeski.
Kyle Busch only has one more Truck Series start this year, at Darlington in May. The rest of the Truckers have a few weeks off too. Saturday, May 4 at Kansas will be the next Truck Series race, the Heart of America 200. The green flag will fly at 8 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.
Written by Peter Stratta
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Photo Credit to Chris Graythen/Getty Images
