Kyle Busch Drives Through The Field To Win The Food City 300 At Bristol Motor Speedway

BRISTOL, Tenn.– Kyle Busch drove through the field after a speeding penalty on his way to victory in Friday night’s NASCAR XFINITY Series Food City 300 at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Busch accomplished the same feat in Wednesday’s NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at the half-mile track. He’s now two-for-two, and he looks to sweep all three Bristol Motor Speedway events this week with a win in Saturday night’s Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race. Busch led 186 laps en route to his 91^st series victory. He has now won at Bristol on nine occasions.

“Had a great opportunity to lead a lot of laps tonight and was able to drive back up through the field there to put on a show,” Busch said. “Glad that I didn’t have to do it in the last stage because I’m not sure I would have got there. Daniel (Suárez) was pretty strong there coming on there before that caution came out with about 20 to go. I thought he was gaining on us just a titch and then we got that last restart there and just was able to drive away, but the car was sideways loose. I was really overdriving it, but barely hanging on.”

The 32-year-old started from the pole in the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 18 NOS Rowdy Toyota, leading the early laps, but within a series of cautions in the first stage, he was passed by Justin Allgaier for the lead. Busch eventually regained the lead with a pass on the low side and went on to win Stage 1.

Under the caution for the ending of Stage 1, Busch, among others, sped on pit road. He was sent to the rear, but he carved his way through the field and was able to recapture the lead with 13 laps to go in Stage 2. It only took him 58 laps to rally through the pack with dicey, three-wide passes. Busch went on to win Stage 2 as well.

Daniel Suarez led 24 laps throughout the race in his Joe Gibbs Racing No. 20 Juniper Toyota, but he had to finished for second. The runner-up finish was the Mexican-born’s sixth top-10 of the year.

“First of all I want to say that I’m very proud of this team,” Suarez said. “I don’t get to race the 20 team very often, but I have done it twice this year and we’ve finished third and second now. Very proud of this group. It feels good you know, to try new people and to try new ideas and stuff and create some – an entire group, the 20 group they have very very very strong race cars and it was a lot of fun racing right there with the 18 (Kyle Busch). Maybe a little bit too tight there next to the 4 (Ross Chastain), but I used my tires a lot to try to catch him. That’s part of racing.”

Elliott Sadler drove his JR Motorsports No. 1 JR OneMain Financial Chevrolet to a third-place finish on Friday night. With Friday night’s finish, Sadler is now locked into this year’s Playoff.

Ty Dillon and Justin Allgaier completed the top-five, while Brennan Poole, Daniel Hemric, Austin Dillon, Joey Logano and Cole Custer finished out the top-10.

There were eight cautions for 46 laps over the course of the 300-lap event.

On lap 26, the caution came out for Aric Almirola, Spencer Gallagher and Ryan Reed crashing on the backstretch. On lap 40, Reed brought out the caution once again with a tire down due to damage.

With 16 laps to go, the caution came out when Jeb Burton and Brendan Gaughan made contact up against the outside wall in Turn. Both cars suffered significant damage, and race winner Kyle Busch just barely eked through. The incident set up the field for a restart with just eight laps to go. Busch successfully held off the field on that restart as he went on to win the race.

Elliott Sadler continues to lead the NASCAR XFINITY Series points standings over William Byron by 110 points.

The NASCAR XFINITY Series takes on the twists and turns of Road America on Sunday, August 27 at 3 p.m. ET. Coverage will be held on NBC and the Motor Racing Network (MRN).

Photo Credit: Hunter Thomas/TheFourthTurn.com