Kyle Busch took off like he hadNitrous in the No. 18 NOS Energy Drink Toyota and dominated the first half of the race before being chased down for a brief period by Jeff Burton’s No. 29 Holiday Chevrolet.
But Burton couldn’t stay out front and Busch’s rocket ship regained the lead 16 laps later. Burton would be relegated to an 8th place finish.
Tony Stewart made a late-race pit stop and brought the No. 33 Armor All Chevrolet from seventh to second but just didn’t have enough time to chase down Busch in the final laps. A bad call earlier in the race to forego swapping nine lap old tires with stickers ended up being the saving grace in the end and almost put Stewart in Victory Lane.
“I will be honest, I was surprised that with only nine laps on the tires that we would be in that bad of shape,” Stewart said after the race. “I never dreamed we would be so tight that early in the race. Having that last set of tires though really paid off for us. I probably should have anticipated the warmer weather and the track being tighter. I am really proud of the Armor All guys and Ernie Cope (crew chief).”
Busch’s victory made him the first ever driver to win a Nationwide Series race from the pole at Texas Motor Speedway. His dominance at TMS is undeniable with him leading 178 of 200 laps today and 478 of last 600 laps he has run at the track.
“First time that I haven’t done a burnout,” Busch said after getting out of the car and referencing a new rule from NASCAR that forces teams to reuse engines as a cost saving measure. He also raised a few eyebrows by somewhat imitating his brother reverse celebration from Atlanta two weeks ago. “I just backed up so I wouldn’t leave those guys out in Turn 1. I wasn’t doing a Kurt Busch thing.”
Busch said his car was strong, which was apparent by his dominance. This is the third straight win for Busch at TMS in the Nationwide Series.
"We really started off good and were really fast. The guys on pit road were also flawless today," Busch said. "We smoked them on pit road."
Finishing order from 4th through 43rd:
David Ragan
Paul Menard
Matt Kenseth
Mike Bliss
Jeff Burton
David Reutimann
Justin Algair
Michael Annett
Joey Logano
Jason Leffler
Steve Wallace
Jason Keller
Scott Lagasse Jr.
Michael McDowell
Carl Edwards
Michael Waltrips
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Kenny Wallace
Tony Raines
Brandon Whitt
Robert Richardson Jr.
Kenny Hendrick
Peyton Sellers
Casey Atwood
Morgan Shepherd
Danny O’Quinn Jr.
David Green
Kevin Hamlin
Shelby Howard
Kevin LePage
Eric McClure
Burney Lamar
John Wes Townley
Brendan Gaughan
Brian Keselowski
Joe Nemechek
J.C. Stout
Andy Ponstein
Terry Cook
Johnny Chapman
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