Kyle Busch made his first appearance in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series of the year at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Busch entered the afternoon looking to capture his 47th career victory in the series since making his debut back in 2001.
Busch, a native of Las Vegas, sat seventh on the leaderboard in round one of qualifying. It would be good enough to advance into the second round to have a shot at the pole. After round two of qualifying, Busch would sit in the runner-up spot behind teammate Christopher Bell. This would place him second on the Active Pest Control 200 starting grid.
The veteran Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series driver and Camping World Truck Series team owner would have an up and down day in his No. 51 Toyota Tundra.
On lap 51, just a few laps after the conclusion of stage one, Busch would bring out the fourth caution of the day dropping oil on the track. Despite this, he would continue on with his day and find himself back into the mix 30 laps later.
On lap 84, Busch would pass eventual race winner Christopher Bell for the race lead. He would sit atop the scoring pylon for 25 more circuits until being passed by Grant Enfinger on lap 109. That would be the last time fans would see the NASCAR XFINITY Series race winner earlier that day lead the field in this event. Bell would later get the lead back on lap 114 and once again on lap 129.
In the final laps of the race, after restarting sixth with 18 laps remaining, Busch had a right-side tire go down that caused him to make contact with the outside wall. The team would have no choice but to make a pit stop – causing them to finish the late afternoon event three laps down in 26th.
The last time Kyle Busch finished 26th or worse in a Camping World Truck Series event wasn’t that long ago. It happened last season at Kentucky Speedway where he crashed on lap 56 of 150 and finished 30th. The last time he finished outside the top 30 was Texas Motor Speedway in 2011 where he was parked for intentionally wrecking Ron Hornaday Jr.
In nine Camping World Truck Series starts at the 1.540-mile oval, Busch holds four victories, seven top five and eight top 10 finishes. He holds an average start there of 3.2 and an average finish of 5.0 and has led 320 total laps.
About Me: Brett has been following the sport of NASCAR since the beginning of the 2006 NASCAR Sprint Cup season. Since Brett was 13, he has had a passion of chasing a job in sports that not many get the opportunity of doing. He has been in the NASCAR media since the middle of the 2010 season. Since then, he has been a part of many racing podcast shows to improve his talents. He has written for racingonfuel.com and theracingwheel.com. Currently, Brett writes for motorsportsnat.com and TracksideChatter.com. You can find him on twitter @NASCAR_Brett.
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