{"id":44023,"date":"2017-09-25T11:16:47","date_gmt":"2017-09-25T18:16:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=44023"},"modified":"2017-09-25T11:16:47","modified_gmt":"2017-09-25T18:16:47","slug":"busch-reddick-and-bell-earn-victories-in-nascars-countdown-to-championship-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/busch-reddick-and-bell-earn-victories-in-nascars-countdown-to-championship-weekend\/","title":{"rendered":"Busch, Reddick and Bell Earn Victories in NASCAR\u2019s Countdown to Championship Weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Busch,
Kyle Busch leads the field at the start of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series ISM Connect 300 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway (Photo by Jeff Zelevansky\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Countdown to the 2017 NASCAR Championships continued this weekend in New Hampshire and Kentucky, giving three drivers a chance to prove their worth in the chase for the Championship.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

UNOH 175<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Busch,
Christopher Bell celebrates in Victory Lane after winning the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series UNOH 175. (Photo by Sean Gardner\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Young Gun Christopher Bell kicked off this weekend\u2019s Countdown to the Championship during Saturday\u2019s Camping World Truck Series UNOH 175 race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Despite fellow young gun Noah Gragson grabbing the 21 Means 21 Pole Award for this 175-lap race, the driver fell short to a hard-charging Ryan Truex, who led 28 laps of this race before Bell got a strong run off the second corner and buried his Tundra into Turn 3 to shoot past Truex for the lead.<\/p>\n

After taking down the brother of Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series driver Martin Truex, Jr. for the lead, Bell powered his No. 4 SiriusXM Toyota to the fifth victory of the season and seventh win of his career. The win earned Bell automatic advancement into the second round of the playoffs, gave him an additional seven playoff points to bring his series-leading total to 47 and widened his advantage over the seven drivers chasing him for the title.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew that it was going to be tough to pass all day,\u201d said Bell. \u201cFortunately, our truck was so good we were able to get by drivers like Truex to grab the win and further our chances at a NASCAR Camping World Truck Series championship.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bell leaves the Magic Mile with a 40-point lead in the 2017 championship battle over the defending series champion Johnny Sauter.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

VisitMyrtleBeach.com 300<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Busch,
Tyler Reddick celebrates in Victory Lane with his crew after winning the NASCAR XFINITY Series VisitMyrtleBeach.com 300 at Kentucky Speedway. (Photo by Sarah Crabill\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Running a partial NASCAR XFINITY Series schedule this season, Chip Ganassi Racing driver Tyler Reddick spoiled the party for the opening round of the playoffs by earning his first career win in Saturday night\u2019s VisitMyrtleBeach.com 300 at Kentucky Speedway. Despite NASCAR Next alumnus Kyle Benjamin grabbing the pole for the 200-lap race, Reddick, who hadn\u2019t led a lap in his previous 14 races this season, pushed his way to the front to lead a race-high 66 laps to grab his first XFINITY Series win.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a really fast car last weekend, our mile-and-a-half program has been unreal,\u201d said Reddick. \u201cMy Crew Chief Mike Shiplett and all the guys at Ganassi have gone above and beyond to help me become a better driver and get me to Victory Lane.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although Reddick earned his first win, a young Justin Allgaier had more reason to celebrate as he took the XFINITY Series Countdown to the Championship point lead thanks to his top-three finish at Kentucky.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

ISM Connect 300<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Busch,
Kyle Busch poses in Victory Lane after winning the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series ISM Connect 300 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. (Photo by Sean Gardner\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As the dust settled on both the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series and XFINITY Series first set of championship races, the stars of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series rolled into New Hampshire Motor Speedway for their next step towards the Cup Series title.<\/p>\n

Driven to the green flag start by the No. 18 of Joe Gibbs driver Kyle Busch, it wouldn\u2019t be long before this driver would have to face off against his nemesis. Martin Truex, Jr., who started in the top-five, quickly found his way to the top and ahead of the ISM Connect 300 pole sitter to take the Stage 1 win.<\/p>\n

Although Truex\u2019s powerful No. 78 Toyota led 112 of the 300 laps, a wreck between Austin Dillon and Kevin Harvick on Lap 150 picked up Truex, Jr. out in the collateral damage. From that point on Busch became the dominating force in this race after taking the Stage 2 and final checkered flag.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was a pretty intense win,\u201d said Busch. \u201cAll in all, it was just a great day. We did what we were supposed to do, and it\u2019s awesome to win here in the Granite State in front of these fans.\u201d<\/p>\n

After winning for the third time this season as well as the third time at Loudon and the 41st time in his Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series career, Busch has locked up a spot in the Round of 12, and he wasn’t the only one. Larson and fourth-place finisher Brad Keselowski also are assured of advancing on points. With Truex gaining the next round thanks to his victory in last Sunday\u2019s Playoff opener at Chicagoland Speedway, four of the 12 berths are taken.<\/p>\n

Truex will have to avoid any further calamity if he wants to stay on top following next weekend\u2019s action at Dover. Stay tuned to RacingJunk.com<\/a> for all the latest in NASCAR news.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Countdown to the 2017 NASCAR Championships continued this weekend in New Hampshire and Kentucky, giving three drivers a chance to prove their worth in the chase for the Championship.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":44025,"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","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3424,3470,5029,22],"tags":[2954,1619,682,127,3176,41,1632,2953],"class_list":["post-44023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","category-news","category-racing","category-event-coverage","tag-christopher-bell","tag-ellen-richardson","tag-kyle-busch","tag-nascar","tag-nascar-xfinity-series","tag-news","tag-racing","tag-tyler-reddick"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Countdown-NHMS_Feature-Image.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-bs3","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44023","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\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44023"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44023\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44028,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44023\/revisions\/44028"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}