Trevor Bayne, whose 2011 NASCAR season has seen the high of winning the Daytona 500 and the low of missing several weeks of racing due to complications from an insect bite, reached another high today by winning the NASCAR Nationwide Series Seventh Annual O'Reilly Auto Parts Challenge at Texas Motor Speedway. It was Bayne's first win in the Nationwide Series.
Bayne qualified tenth for the race, but started ninth due to original second place qualifier Kyle Busch being parked for the race as well as tomorrow's Sprint Cup race due to his actions during the previous evening's Camping World Truck Series race, ran a mostly unobtrusive race, staying in the top ten for most of the day but never a serious threat to Carl Edwards, who dominated much of the day. His chance came when a late caution bunched the field. On the final restart, which came with six laps to go, Bayne, who had worked his way into second, first pushed Edwards and himself ahead of third-place Denny Hamlin who was substituting for Busch and had started in the rear of the field. He then made a clean pass coming out of the second turn and never looked back. Edwards ended the day in third place behind Hamlin, who passed Edwards with two laps to go but was unable to catch Bayne.
Bayne's win secured the manufacturer's championship in the Nationwide Series for Ford, its first win in six years.
In news of other drivers, Danica Patrick acquitted herself well in her first start as a full-time NASCAR driver. After qualifying eleventh and starting tenth, despite a couple of miscues during pit stops Patrick rallied to finish eleventh. Afterwards, Edwards and Hamlin both complimented Patrick's driving, commenting on her noticeable improvement from earlier starts.
With two races remaining in the season, the championship battle finds Ricky Stenhouse Jr. leading Elliott Sadler by seventeen points.
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