Kyle Busch got his 61st win in the NASCAR Cup Series on Sunday (Feb. 26) afternoon, winning the final race at Auto Club Speedway’s two-mile configuration.
Busch held off Chase Elliott and Ross Chastain late to get there. Daniel Suarez and Kevin Harvick rounded out the top five.
The win marked Busch’s first since joining Richard Childress Racing this off-season.
“Its phenomenal, I can’t thank Richard and Judy [Childress] enough, can’t thank Austin [Dillon] enough for calling me,” Busch told FOX. “Sometimes you get down on it and you put yourself in a good situation and you reward your guys.”
Elliott was proud of his and his team’s efforts on Sunday. The 2020 Series Champion had failed to score a top-five finish since his win at Talladega last fall. “I’m really proud of our team, especially with how bad we ran toward the end of last year,” Elliott said. “Everybody worked really hard over the winter to get better.”
Denny Hamlin brought his Toyota Camry home in sixth, followed by Brad Keselowski, who had one of his best runs since buying an ownership stake in what is now Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing. Alex Bowman was impressive at times and finished eigth, while Austin Dillon kept the good vibes going for RCR with a ninth place run. Joey Logano rounded out the top 10 on the day.
Chastain swept both stages while stars like Ryan Blaney, Martin Truex Jr. and Kyle Larson found trouble early and finished poorly. Chastain didn’t have much of an explanation for how Busch got by him today, opening his post race interview with, “I don’t know, he just got faster!”
The racing was hot and heavy all day, as it was often three, four and even five wide at times for the positions at the front of the field. While the racing was very competitive, they were very few incidents. The biggest of the day happened on lap 87 when the field was bunched up for a restart. The control car of Logano laid back to get a jump on the field, which stacked up the outside lane.
The end result was a huge crash that took out contenders such as Blaney, Tyler Reddick, Aric Almirola and Ryan Preece. It was particularly devastating for Blaney, who had led laps and finished second in the first stage. Truex had a loose wheel following a pit stop and was penalized and lost two laps. There will surely be more penalties to come for crew chief James Small and the team as well.
Larson looked strong for about 13 laps…
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