Kyle Busch celebrates his win (photos from NASCAR Media)
Lately, Kyle Busch has dominated a lot of Nationwide Series races, leading the most laps, only to fall short of victory lane near the end. In Saturday’s Camping World RV Rental 200 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, that’s exactly what happened to his teammate Joey Logano. Logano led more than half the laps and then watched as Busch pulled away to more than a half-second lead on his way to the win.
It was Busch’s fifth Nationwide Series win in a season that has seen him lead more than half of the total laps ran so far.
After the race, Logano said that now he understands how Busch has been feeling a lot lately. Logano may not have been the one celebrating in victory lane, but he did come away from New Hampshire with a runner-up finish.
“I wanted to be up front,” Busch said. “I just couldn’t get there.”
Meanwhile, Brad Keselowski finished in what is becoming a very familiar spot -- third. It was his third-consecutive third-place finish.
Mike Bliss, who stayed out to gain track position during the third and final caution of the race, finished fourth, and Kevin Harvick rounded out the top-five.
In addition to a Joe Gibbs Racing one-two finish and a familiar face in third, Saturday’s Nationwide Series event also produced some drama near the end. Sprint Cup Series teammates Scott Speed and Brian Vickers got together while racing for fifth-position. Instead of at least one of them posting a top-five finish, neither of them did The contact resulted in a finish of eighth for Speed and Vickers wound up 12th.
According to Speed, Vickers checked up in front of him and he wasn’t able to slow down.
“Yeah, I slowed down,” Vickers said. “I was going into a turn. That’s what you do going into a turn.”
With the win, Busch increased his points lead to 162 points over second-place Carl Edwards. Edwards did manage to take advantage of the Speed/Vickers altercation to finish the race in the sixth-position.
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