Kyle Busch pulled away during an overtime sprint to the finish at Richmond Raceway to win the Toyota Owners 400 and score his third straight NASCAR Cup Series victory.
Busch won the race despite starting all the way back in 32nd position. Of Busch’s 46 NASCAR wins, that is the deepest starting spot from which he has finished first, and it’s also the deepest position ever to win a race at Richmond.
Much of the race was dominated by Joey Logano, who won the event last year, and won both Stage 1 and Stage 2 this year before finishing fourth overall.
Cautions Give Busch Opening
The race was largely clean, running for more than 350 laps before the yellow flag came out on Lap 353, when a crash between Ryan Blaney and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. stopped the action.
It was a second caution that gave Busch his opportunity to take the lead. When Ryan Newman’s smoking car brought out the yellow flag, Busch went to pit road in second place, just behind Martin Truex, Jr., but left the pit in first place.
“The pit crew tonight, they won this race for us,” Busch told reporters after the finish. “They got us off pit road first those last two times and got us where we needed to be.”
For Truex, the pit stops during the final two cautions proved to be his undoing. While the other top teams quickly got off pit road following a spin by David Ragan, his team struggled to get him out of the No. 1 stall, with at least seven cars passing him before the race restarted. Truex has never won a NASCAR race in 75 starts on short tracks.
Historic Streaks in Play
The victory makes Busch the second driver to win three consecutive races this season, with Kevin Harvick having pulled off the feat earlier in the year. The result also made Busch only the third NASCAR Cup Series driver in the past 35 years to finish in the top-three for seven races in a row. The record in the modern era (which began after the 1972 season) is 13 top-three finishes in a row, set by David Pearson in 1973 and matched by Darrell Waltrip in 1981.
A fourth straight victory would also tie Busch for the longest modern NASCAR Cup Series winning streak. But the driver sought to lower expectations heading into next week’s event.
“I think it’s easier to win the Powerball than win at Talladega,” Busch said after the race. “We’ll give it a go anyway, see what we get.”
While NASCAR is only nine races into its season, the emergence of two three-race winners has put them at the top of the early odds to win this year’s championship. William Hill currently has Harvick (3/1) as their favorite, just ahead of Busch (10/3), who currently leads the series standings. Other top contenders include Truex (5/1) and Kyle Larson (8/1).