Kyle Busch headed into Saturday's Ford 300 Nationwide Series season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway with the war pretty much already won, only needing to start the race to claim his first NASCAR championship. With the title already wrapped up, he was focused on winning the battle.
In the closing laps, that battle -- the race itself -- came down to a duel between champion Busch and second-place in points and race pole sitter Carl Edwards. Busch would be victorious, claiming his ninth win of the season -- a season that saw him score more points than anyone ever has in a single season in Nationwide Series history.
"A lot of records, yet a lot of frustrations," Busch said of his 2009 season that not only saw him visit victory lane 9 times but coming so close several other times -- posting 11 send-place finishes.
Edwards started up front but came down pit road on an early caution while pit road was closed so that the No. 60 team repair the valance on the car. Edwards had to restart in the back, but it didn't take him long to move up through the field. He would go on to lead several laps until several others on the lead lap took tires during a caution with about 51 laps to go, as Edwards and a few others stayed out.
We got off sequence," Edwards said. "we had those tires."
He quickly relinquished the lead and lost a few more positions to drivers running on fresher tires. It all worked out in the end though, as he concluded his season with a second-place finish.
"It was a lot of fun," Edwards said. "We needed a couple of more laps."
Jeff Burton ran near the front all day and piloted the No. 29 car to a third-place finish. Busch's teammate Joey Logano finished fourth.
Denny Hamlin made a promise last week that rival Brad Keselowski would have a payback coming to him this weekend at Homestead. Keselowski spun by himself early, resulting in a restart at the rear of the lead lap cars. He made his way back through the field fairly quickly, only to be on the receiving end of the payback Hamlin predicted.
That payback resulted in another restart from near the back for Keselowski and a one lap penalty for Hamlin. Hamlin would eventually get back on the lead lap, and the two would find themselves close together on the racetrack several more times throughout the race.
Hamlin did recover to post a fifth-place finish. Meanwhile, Keselowski finished 12th.
"It was well worth it," Hamlin said of the penalty.
The closest points battle to keep an eye on heading into Saturday's race was the fight for the fifth and final spot on stage for the awards banquet. Heading into the Ford 300, Mike Bliss occupied the position, and Justin Allgaier was just 14 points back in sixth.
After the race, Bliss was still held the position, thanks to a 16th-place finish while Allgaier finished 20th.
Allgaier also heading into Saturday's season finale in a close battle with Brendan Gaughan for Rookie of the Year. Gaughan, like Bliss, also finished ahead of Allgaier -- just outside the top-10 in the 11th position. A panel of NASCAR officials make the final decision on who is crowned ROY.
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