{"id":26867,"date":"2016-05-09T12:16:36","date_gmt":"2016-05-09T19:16:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=26867"},"modified":"2016-05-09T12:16:36","modified_gmt":"2016-05-09T19:16:36","slug":"kyle-busch-wins-first-race-at-kansas-speedway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/kyle-busch-wins-first-race-at-kansas-speedway\/","title":{"rendered":"Kyle Busch Wins First Race at Kansas Speedway"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"NASCAR
Cars come in to pit during the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Go Bowling 400 at Kansas Speedway on May 7, 2016 in Kansas City, Kansas. (Photo by Jerry Markland\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Kyle Busch tasted victory for the third time this NASCAR Sprint Cup season winning Saturday night in the GoBowling.com 400 at Kansas Speedway.\u00a0 Busch fought off Kevin Harvick in the final 20 laps to distance himself in taking his first Kansas victory after 17 previous starts triumphing by 1.112 seconds now giving him 37 wins in NASCAR\u2019s premier series.<\/p>\n

It was with 26 laps to go when the last caution waved as a result from a major crash between Brad Keselowski, Denny Hamlin, Kyle Larson and Joey Logano in turn three. \u00a0As the trio was entering the turn, Hamlin made a move plowing through the middle never touching Keselowski, but caused his Penske Ford suddenly to lose grip with a slow spin to the inside.\u00a0 The disturbance of the air then sent Hamlin sideways pinning Larson against the wall later being T-boned by Logano as he went high to avoid the accident.<\/p>\n

\"NASCAR
Kyle Busch celebrates after winning the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Go Bowling 400 at Kansas Speedway on May 7, 2016 in Kansas City, Kansas. (Photo by Jerry Markland\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The green flag waved for the final time with 19 laps remaining with Busch blasting off with Kevin Harvick close behind, who did make a couple of attempts at the lead.\u00a0 Busch, racing on older tires last pitting on lap 211 with 56 to go, began driving away from the competition seemingly never showing a flaw in his driving.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s pretty big,\u201d said Busch, who now has won eight races in his last 32 events adding Kansas Speedway to his win list.\u00a0 \u201cThere\u2019s been a lot of rough days at Kansas and a lot of good ones, too!\u00a0 Through the beginning and middle part of the race we weren\u2019t great.\u00a0 Adam Stevens (crew chief) and the team kept digging and working on it.\u00a0 The 78 (Martin Truex, Jr.) was probably the fastest car but we kept ourselves in the game.\u00a0 It was pretty impressive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Busch felt comfortable staying out the last caution and wasn\u2019t concerned about fuel preferring to gain track position as they have done numerous times before.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought clean air was best,\u201d said Busch.\u00a0 \u201cI know we had some laps on our tires but I still thought our car was really good out front. \u00a0Then Harvick hounded me for a few laps and he raced me really clean.\u00a0 He had one opportunity especially off (turn) four and I kind of cut him off.\u00a0 When you\u2019re clear, you\u2019re clear.\u00a0 You take that chance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"NASCAR
Martin Truex Jr., driver of the #78 Bass Pro Shops\/TRACKER Boats Toyota Toyota, comes in for a pit stop. (Photo by Sean Gardner\/NASCAR via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Harvick accepted his runner-up position after he lost some of his handling properties had at times one of the strongest cars in the field.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor some reason I got tight,\u201d said Harvick describing his last effort to chase down Busch.\u00a0 \u201cI hit a big piece of debris (turn two) over there with about six or seven laps from the end and the car got really tight.\u00a0 It knocked a big hunk out of the nose and knocked the splitter down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pole sitter, Truex, Jr. had the inklings of a great night shaping up leading a pace setting 172 laps only to suffer from a loose right front wheel consequential from his green flag stop on lap 212.\u00a0 He quickly pitted on 215 to correct the problem but by then he had dropped to 21st<\/sup>, a lap down.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t believe it,\u201d said a disappointed Truex after finishing 14th.\u00a0 \u201cI went around one and two and it\u2019s like, \u2018damn wheel is loose\u2019.\u00a0 I kept telling myself, maybe it\u2019s not, and it\u2019s just shaking because it has tape on it or something stupid.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was loose.\u00a0 I could tell right away.\u00a0 It\u2019s frustrating, but that\u2019s how it goes.\u00a0 If we keep bringing cars like this, we\u2019re going to win some.\u00a0 It\u2019s just frustrating when you\u2019ve had it happen so many times in your career.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"NASCAR
Denny Hamlin, driver of the #11 FedEx Express Freight Toyota, and Brad Keselowski, driver of the #2 Alliance Truck Parts Ford, wreck during the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Go Bowling 400. (Photo by Jerry Markland\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Now with Busch leading the series with three wins and first in the Chase, his victory at Kansas only leaves Pocono Raceway and Charlotte Motor Speedway as the two remaining tracks he will be seeking to come victorious in the upcoming weeks.<\/p>\n

The top five after Busch, were Kevin Harvick, Kurt Busch, Matt Kenseth with his best finish of the season in fourth, and Ryan Blaney in fifth, a career best.<\/p>\n

The average speed of the GoBowling.com 400 was 141.909 mph.\u00a0 The race had six caution flags for 30 laps.\u00a0 There were 16 lead changes among 10 drivers.<\/p>\n

The next NASCAR Sprint Cup event comes up on Sunday on May 15, for the running of the AAA 400 Drive for Autism at Dover International Speedway.\u00a0 The race will air on FOX Sports 1at 1 p.m. EDT.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kyle Busch grabs his third Kansas victory at the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Go Bowling 400.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":26879,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3424,3470,22],"tags":[4067,1528,2844,682,2849,3115,4449],"class_list":["post-26867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","category-news","category-event-coverage","tag-2016-nascar-sprint-cup-series","tag-kevin-harvick","tag-kurt-busch","tag-kyle-busch","tag-martin-truex-jr","tag-matt-kenseth","tag-nascar-sprint-cup-series-go-bowling-400-at-kansas-speedway-nascar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/KyBusch_CheckeredFlag_0507161_Feature.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-6Zl","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26867"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26867\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26880,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26867\/revisions\/26880"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}