Kyle Busch survives late restart for Nationwide win at the Brickyard

Kyle Busch survives late restart for Nationwide win at the Brickyard

July 27, 2013

By Reid Spencer

NASCAR Wire Service

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- Even with a car that was clearly the class of the field, Kyle Busch had some anxious moments in closing laps of Saturday’s Indiana 250 NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

That Busch beat runner-up Brian Scott to the finish line by 2.141 seconds belies the difficulty Busch experienced on the final restart on Lap 95 of 100, when Joey Logano squeezed Busch into Turn 1 and allowed Scott to take the lead.

After harrying Scott for nearly three laps, Busch finally made the winning pass, putting an exclamation point on a dominant performance that saw him lead 92 laps.

The victory was Busch’s eighth of the NNS season in 15 starts and the 59th of his career, extending his own series record. Earlier in the day, Busch had won his 31st NNS pole, breaking a tie with Mark Martin for the all-time lead in that category.

Scott’s second-place run was the best of his career in the NASCAR Nationwide Series. Logano came home third, followed by Brian Vickers and Kevin Harvick.

As the highest finishing NASCAR Nationwide regular qualified for the fourth leg of Nationwide's Dash4Cash, Vickers claimed the final $100,000 bonus and won an additional $100,000 for Pam Nabors of Santa Cruz, Calif., the fan who was paired with Vickers in the Dash4Cash finale.

Busch was on pit road on Lap 65 when NASCAR called the second caution of the race because of fluid from Sam Hornish Jr.’s overheating engine.

Busch, however, stayed on the lead lap and regained the top spot when all the lead-lap cars ahead of him came to pit road for service under the yellow. With many drivers who came to pit road under yellow opting for new right-side tires only -- among them Trevor Bayne, Vickers, Harvick and Paul Menard -- Busch, on four new tires, led the field to a restart on Lap 71 with a tire advantage over most of the competition.

Logano, who had come to pit road under green on Lap 64, kept pace with Busch for two laps after the restart, but by Lap 75, the driver of the No. 54 Toyota had opened an advantage of more than one second. Busch’s lead had grown to more than two seconds by Lap 84, when Nelson Piquet Jr. brushed the wall and dropped debris on the track to cause the third caution.

A multicar incident on Lap 89 caused the final caution and set up the six-lap run to the finish.