It was a battle of the Kyles at Kansas, but the one with his name in the race title took the checkered flag.
Kyle Busch won the Buschy McBusch Race 400 following a late-race restart as Kyle Larson and Ryan Blaney made contact at the front of the pack to send both cars backwards. Kevin Harvick finished in second and Brad Keselowski finished in third.
“You talk about ups and downs of racing, it’s been a lot of downs of life for us,” Busch said on FS1 after his first win of the season.
He mentioned his family’s recent and public battle with infertility, and gave a shoutout to his wife, Samantha, and son, Brexton, as well at the No. 18 Toyota team’s sponsors.
“It’s cool to get everybody back in Victory Lane again this early in the season,” Busch said. “To be able to get some of those points going our way now.”
ROWDY RETURNS
Busch earned his 58th career win Sunday on his 36th birthday, a day after winning the Truck Series race at the same 1.5-mile track. The two-time Cup champion has won at least one race each season for the past 17 years and is tied with Harvick on the all-time Cup wins list.
Harvick, who hasn’t won a race yet this season, said his No. 4 Ford was “on and off” throughout the 267-lap event, but the team made the right strategy call at the end to have better tires later in the race as the cautions piled up.
“Got pretty aggressive there at the end and were able to come up with a good finish,” Harvick said on FS1.
Busch is the 10th different winner in the first 11 races of the 2021 season. He is also the second driver in NASCAR history to win on his birthday more than once. He won at Richmond on the same day in 2009, and is tied with David Pearson for a 17-year win streak, one year behind Richard Petty.
“Being able to (win) 17 years now and hopefully go on into 18, 19, 20, whatever it is, there’s definitely not very many things that you’re going to beat The King at, that’s for darned sure,” Busch said. “Hopefully we can continue that tradition and then make sure that we get to 18, get to 19 and so on.”
A CONTROVERSIAL TIRE CALL?
An otherwise crash-free race devolved into caution chaos in the final 40 laps. As green flag pit stops cycled through in the final stage, an errant tire from Tyler Reddick’s stall rolled into the grass near pit road. Reddick served a pass-through for the uncontrolled tire, but NASCAR waited around 15 laps to throw the caution flag after the final driver completed the pit stop sequence, which was Chris Buescher in the lead.
“I don’t know why it took so long,” Buescher’s No. 17 radio said.
After the restart, Kyle Larson and Denny Hamlin battled for the top spot, but Larson was able to get around Hamlin when the No. 11 blew a right front tire and slid into the wall. Hamlin, who still leads the series in points, finished in 12th.
“I think it’s obviously encouraging to see Kyle get to Victory Lane, and we’d love to see Denny get there, too,” JGR executive Coy Gibbs said. “He’s had a bunch of seconds. But this is a long, hard season, so I’m not going to jump up and down quite yet. I think it’s important to get on a roll and it’s important to carry that into the playoffs, so that’s kind of what we’re looking at.”
The caution for Hamlin was the first of three yellow flags in the span of 15 laps. A spin by Ricky Stenhouse Jr. after the restart brought out the next caution, which was followed by the final yellow flag on lap 259 for Christopher Bell sliding across the track. He collected both JTG Daugherty cars, the No. 47 of Stenhouse and the No. 37 of Ryan Preece, in his wake.
The cautions bred cautions, as the saying goes. As the race played out, some wondered why NASCAR waited so long to throw the first flag for the tire on the grass. But No. 18 crew chief Ben Beshore said he thought NASCAR has been consistent with the calls lately in letting the pit stops cycle out.
“It’s nice that they do that because it’s not an unfair advantage to the guys that short pitted and somebody just let a tire roll out,” Beshore said. “I think what they did was right.”
LATE LAP RUN-IN FOR LARSON, BLANEY
The late-lap restarts played out in the No. 18 team’s favor. Busch, who took the top spot after the last restart, again held onto his lead from the inside lane for the two-lap shootout that closed the race. Blaney lined up on the outside with Larson behind him, but when the green flag waved, Blaney spun out after contact from Larson. Blaney was able to save his car from disaster, but Larson drove up into the wall. Larson finished 19th. Blaney finished 21st.
Larson told FS1 after the race that he planned on pushing Blaney’s bumper as hard as he could.
“Obviously I was just pushing too hard and got him loose and chased ourselves both up into the wall,” Larson said. “So (I) was just trying to help him stay side-by-side with the 18 down the back to allow myself to have some sort of opportunity.”
Larson led 132 laps, the most of the race, and won the second stage.
“That’s really the first time I was behind anybody on a restart,” Larson said. “So I thought I could push around the corner but I learned for next time.”
BATTLE OF THE KYLES
Larson and Busch exchanged the lead seven times throughout the race, beginning with a showdown to close the first stage, and ending with a final pass off a late restart.
Larson was able to race from a 32nd place starting position — a product of his early engine issue at Talladega the previous weekend — to top-10 in fewer than 15 laps. He was chasing down leader and pole-sitter Kesleowski by the final 10 laps in the stage, and with six to go, he raced to first.
But Busch was gaining speed at the same time and after hovering in the top-five, he drove the high line to pass Larson for first in the final few laps of the stage. Busch also took the Stage 1 title. Larson closed the first stage in second place.
He then gained a spot to lead the field to start the second stage, and with no cautions for incidents, Larson raced cleanly through a green flag pit stop and put around five seconds between his No. 5 car and the No. 18 of Busch trying to track him down from second place.
Larson’s win earlier this season at Las Vegas was on a 1.5-mile tri-oval similar to Kansas. Despite the late-race pushing error, he still showed his strength Sunday and proved he’ll continue to be a factor on the intermediate ovals. But Busch’s team secured the win for the latest victory in Rowdy’s career, and likely one of many more.
“There’s no better day to win I guess than on your birthday,” Busch said. “You get to party twice.”
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