Coming off a weekend sweep at Indianapolis Raceway, where he won both the NASCAR XFINITY Series and NASCAR Spring Cup Series races last weekend, and a Cup Series win at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon the previous week, Kyle Busch made it four consecutive victories across NASCAR’s top-three divisions by winning the NASCAR Camping World Series Pocono Mountains 150 at Pocono (Pa.) Raceway Saturday afternoon. Busch, who was making his first Truck Series start of 2015, put his Dollar General Tundra out front for a race-high 53 laps and survived three green-white checkered finishes to bring home his first victory in any series at the Tricky Triangle and Toyota’s first Truck Series victory at the Pennsylvania track.
“This is really, really cool — I just can’t say enough about everyone from Dollar General and everyone there that does such an awesome job helping us out and sponsoring us,” Busch said. “M&M’s — they’re a great part of that program too. This Toyota Tundra was awesome today, so I thank Toyota of Scranton for helping us out. It’s certainly fun to win here for them and great to win and put Toyota in victory lane for the first time in the Truck Series here and my first Pocono win as well so that was really cool. This KBM (Kyle Busch Motorsports) chassis was great today with this Joe Gibbs Racing engine. I just can’t say enough about Camping World and the fans. Thank you guys very much. I appreciate you being here.”
Busch started the race from the second position alongside KBM teammate Erik Jones, as the two raced against each other for the first time in Truck Series action. When the green flagged dropped Jones paced the way, as his boss fell back to the third position. The Dollar General Tundra had worked its way back to the second position by the time the first caution of the race occurred on lap five.
On the ensuing restart, the mentor worked his way around his pupil and took the lead for the first time. Busch remained out front over the course of a long green-flag run, surrendering the lead on lap 31 to visit pit road for four fresh tires, a full tank of fuel and a trackbar adjustment. When pit stops cycled through on lap 39, the No. 51 Toyota was back in the lead with a 1.29-second cushion on second place.
KBM’s owner-driver had just under a one-second lead on Jones when debris on the track brought out the second caution of the day with just 10 laps remaining. Busch survived the restarts after two more cautions during regulation and then a two-truck accident on lap 55 set up the first attempt at a green-white-checkered finish.
Just as they were at the start of the 60-lap event, Busch and Jones secured the front row as the race went to overtime. Going into Turn 1 things got four-wide and contact from the No. 33 truck sent Jones spinning, bringing out the fourth caution of the race.
Busch held serve on the ensuing restart and was approaching the flag stand to receive the white flag when a two-truck accident set up a third-and-final attempt at a green-white-checkered finish, per NASCAR rules. The Las Vegas native wouldn’t be denied on the final attempt and cruised to the finish line 1.225 seconds ahead of Kevin Harvick to earn his first Pocono victory.
The win was the 43rd of Busch’s Truck Series career and his 148th across NASCAR’s top-three divisions. He has now been victorious in nine of his last 12 starts across NASCAR’s third division since 2013. Harvick was second, followed by Tyler Reddick, Cameron Hayley and Austin Dillon. His KBM teammates Matt Tifft and Erik Jones finished eighth and 10th, respectively.
With KBM’s win at Pocono, the team has now won at all but three active Truck Series tracks (Atlanta Motor Speedway, Michigan International Speedway and Canadian Tire Motorsport Park). The win also gave each of KBM’s three teams a victory this season.
The 11th race of the 2015 season featured five cautions for a total of 16 laps. There were four lead changes among four drivers, including Busch who led twice for 53 laps.
With 12 of 23 races completed, the No. 51 Tundra team sits fourth in the owner’s championship standings – 34 tallies behind points the series leading No. 19 team.
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