RICHMOND, Va. — Kyle Busch took the lead from Carl Edwards during pit stops with just over 30 laps to go and won his eighth NASCAR Nationwide Series race of the season Friday night.
“That final pit stop, my guys really put the pressure on them knowing how good they’d been on pit road all night,” Busch said after his fourth career victory at Richmond International Raceway.
Edwards came back out fourth, and while he and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. battled for position, Busch was able to pull away and win by 0.696 seconds.
Busch’s victory was his 51st in the series, the most in history, and came in a race he and Edwards dominated on the 3/4-mile oval. Edwards led 160 laps, Busch 74, including the last 34.
The two Sprint Cup Series regulars have won 14 of the 27 races in the series this year.
While Busch thanked his pit crew for a “flawless job,” Edwards refused to blame his for the issue that caused him to lose three spots after heading for pit road with the lead.
Stenhouse finished third and padded his points lead over Elliott Sadler from 13 to 16 with seven races remaining. Reed Sorenson is third, 29 points back.
Ryan Truex was fourth, followed by Kenny Wallace. Sadler, Aric Almirola, Sorenson, Justin Allgaier and Joe Nemechek rounded out the top 10.
Stenhouse, who was running second when the race went back to green with 30 laps to go, thought he could have made a better challenge to Busch but fell short.
“I thought we had a little bit for Kyle there at the end. It started off really good. We were kind of running him down and then just lost forward grip,” Stenhouse said.
That allowed Edwards to pass Stenhouse, but he, too, ran out of time.
“I wish we had one more caution, got another shot at him,” Edwards said, while also crediting Stenhouse for letting him make a run at the leader.
“He didn’t hold me up when I was coming there at the end,” Edwards said. “Those guys earned it.
“They got faster all night. We had a little bit of trouble. It is like our car went away just a little bit.”
Reutimann wins pole.
David Reutimann picked a heck of a race to win his fourth career NASCAR Sprint Cup pole.
Reutimann turned a lap at 127.383 mph, claiming the top starting spot in the race that will begin with more than a dozen drivers trying to secure one of the three spots still up for grabs in the 10-race playoffs that begin next weekend.
The 12-driver field will be set after tonight’s 400-lap event, and under the new format, the final two wild-card spots will go to the drivers ranked 11 to 20 in the points who have the most regular-season victories.
As Reutimann sees it, he’s just as entitled to race for the victory as anyone else.
“No different than any other race,” he said when asked how his approach might change given the stakes involved for so many other teams. “You just go out there and try to outrun them. You don’t want to mess with anybody’s day, but I’m out for me.”
Jamie McMurray, another driver out of contention for a Chase spot, will start on the outside of the front row. Five-time defending series champion Jimmie Johnson will start third, with Hendrick Motorsports teammate Mark Martin to his outside.
