After falling back to fifth on the second to last restart of the evening, Kyle Busch powered his way on the outside lane in the second green-white-checkered attempt to capture his 61st career victory in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series.
Busch’s win at Kansas is the fifth consecutive victory for Kyle Busch Motorsports (KBM), the longest winning streak in the organization’s history.
Stage One Recap
Busch started from the second position based off NASCAR’s performance-matrix formula.
With the first stage going green for the entire length, Busch worked his way around his KBM teammate John Hunter Nemecheck with four laps remaining in the stanza and went on to capture the stage win.
Stage Two Recap:
During the first stage, Busch radioed to crew chief Mardy Lindley that his Tundra was loose throughout the run. At the stage break, Lindley summoned Busch to pit road for four tires, fuel and adjustments. Due to a speedy stop by the Cessna over-the-wall crew, Busch maintained his lead off pit road and elected to start State Two from the inside of the front row.
With the second stage going green from start to finish, Busch was able to capture the stage victory over Nemechek despite communicating that he was still loose throughout the run.
Final Stage Recap:
Under the break, Lindley brought the Cessna Tundra down pit road for four tires, fuel and adjustments. Busch would start the final stage on the outside of the second row.
At the third caution of the evening on Lap 71, Busch radioed to his crew that the Cessna took off better to start the Final Stage.
Busch would restart from the first position, on the outside of the front row, but lost several positions when the field went green. The No. 51 Tundra got better as the run went along and had advanced back up to the runner-up position as team’s began to make their final pit stop.
Lindley summoned Busch onto pit road with under green flag conditions with 33 laps remaining for four tires, fuel, and adjustments.
Busch was able to garner the race lead on Lap 119 after pit stops had cycled through.
KBM’s owner-driver held a two-second lead over Nemechek when the fourth caution of the night flew on lap 129. Busch restarted from the lead for the first attempt at NASCAR overtime but fell back to fifth before the fifth and final caution of the night flew on lap 135.
Busch radioed to his Cessna crew that his Tundra was experiencing a mechanical issue. Despite a possible issue, Busch restarted from the fourth position and was able to take the leaders three wide on the outside and regain the race lead off the fourth turn on the second to last lap.
Busch would hold onto the race lead throughout the final lap to score his second victory of the 2021 season and his 61st career NCWTS victory.
Kyle Busch, driver of the No. 51 Cessna Tundra for KBM:
How difficult was the final restart with the issues you were feeling in the truck?
“No restarts actually went our way tonight. I was shocked. We definitely missed something, just being able to come up through the gears and get going. It would not go. It’s just slow. Those guys would just swarm us. I think we saw it on one of the restarts with the 4 (John Hunter Nemechek) truck too, he got run over. All in all, though great job by KBM (Kyle Busch Motorsports), everybody at Toyota and TRD (Toyota Racing Development), this Cessna Beechcraft Tundra was awesome tonight. It’s so cool to win here in front of Cessna’s hometown. I’m sure there’s some Cessna folks up in the grandstands tonight cheering us on. We’re appreciative of them and Rowdy Energy and everybody that helps us get here. Incredible Bank, I know they’re here on the backstretch tonight. Brexton races tomorrow, so he better bring home a win like I brought home a win. Hopefully he can do it, hopefully we can do it. I just want to say hi to my family back home.”
Can you take us through the final restart for the win?
“All the restarts were hectic for us. Any time we started on the front row, we would always go backwards. It just would not fire on the restarts for whatever reason. We definitely had a really good, strong, long-run truck. The guys at KBM (Kyle Busch Motorsports), Toyota, TRD (Toyota Racing Development) – this Cessna Beechcraft Tundra was awesome on the long runs. Those restarts were just not for us. We made it work on that last one. The last one, I was fourth in line – got a little bit of a bump from Todd (Gilliland) and got three-wide. I don’t know what else happened after that, but it was just trying to go where they weren’t by that point and get ourselves back up front. I knew when that caution came out, it was definitely not going to be easy. I hated that we saw that caution but put on a heck of a show for all the fans.”
What kind of a statement is this for another victory for Kyle Busch Motorsports?
“I saw the 4 (John Hunter Nemechek) truck on my inside on the restart in one and two and I was like, ‘damn, he’s already here.’ I thought he was going to come with us right there at the finish, but I don’t know what happened to those guys. Overall, just a real strong year for us so far at KBM. This is a pleasure year so far. It’s cool to have John Hunter, we really lean on each other a lot. We’re trying to get Chandler (Smith) up there a little more and get him going a little bit better. The restarts for all of our trucks tonight certainly weren’t going to help him out. We’ve got some work to do. We’re still not the best.”
ToyotaCare 250 Recap
Kyle Busch captured his second victory of 2021 in the NASCAR beating Ross Chastain by 0.665 seconds. Austin Hill, Christian Eckes and John Hunter Nemechek rounded out the top five.
There were five cautions for 25 laps. There were 14 lead changes among seven drivers with Busch leading six times for 59 laps.
How John Hunter Nemechek’s KBM Teammates Fared:
John Hunter Nemechek, driver of the No. 4 Toyota, finished fifth.
Chandler Smith, driver of the No. 18 Toyota, finished 11th.
NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Championship Standings
After seven races, the No. 51 team is tied with the No. 4 team for first in the owner points.
Next Race
The No. 51 returns to the track with Corey Heim when the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series resumes action on Friday, May 7 at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway. Live coverage will be on FS1, Motor Racing Network and SiriusXM at 7:30 p.m. ET.
