Kyle Busch stole the show on Saturday at Atlanta Motor Speedway in the 25th annual Heads Up Georgia 250. Busch, who made his first XFINITY Series start of 2016, started on the pole and led 119 of the 163 laps of the race. The Las Vegas native captured his 77th career victory in the series and won the race by 0.466 seconds.
Busch captured his first win in the NASCAR XFINITY Series at Atlanta despite starting on the pole five different times since 2006. Busch expressed how much it meant to him.
“It means a lot. It’s been a while, but certainly means a lot just to accomplish some of my goals that I have in racing,” said Busch after the race. “To come out here and to do this today and to beat Kyle Larson – this must be his favorite tracks or one of the just being able to move all over this race track and he’s really good here too. Real proud of our team.
Kyle Larson will leave with the runner-up position in his No. 42 ENEOS Chevrolet for Chip Ganassi Racing. Larson started the day in fourth and stayed inside the top 10 for nearly the entire distance of the event. The California native made the race winner sweat a little towards the end as he started to slowly catch Busch. However, lap traffic and out of time had something to say about that. Larson now holds 28 top five and 48 top 10 finishes in the series.
“I was. I actually thought that last run was going to be too long for our car, which was better for (Kyle) Larson’s car,” said Busch when asked about Larson after the race. “We made some adjustments. (Chris) Gayle (crew chief) did a good job making some adjustments to our car and it helped me. It helped me definitely on the front side of the run for about the first 20 and I don’t think it hurt me from there on to the end of the race, but Larson was just better than us.”
Erik Jones rebounded with a third-place finish after starting the 250-mile event on a rough note. NASCAR determined that Jones started the race ahead of the pole sitter and had to serve a pass-through penalty. The Michigan native will capture his 14th top five and 21st top 10 finish in the series since making his debut in 2014.
Elliott Sadler will continue leading the NASCAR XFINITY Series standings after Atlanta. Sadler took his No. 1 Chevrolet to a ninth-place finish at the 1.54-mile oval after starting the day in 16th. The Virginia native also led the standings after last weekend’s season opener at Daytona.
P |
DRIVER |
BEHIND |
1 |
Elliott Sadler |
Leader |
2 |
Daniel Suarez |
-3 |
3 |
Ty Dillon |
-5 |
4 |
Brandon Jones |
-6 |
5 |
Justin Allgaier |
-7 |
6 |
Brendan Gaughan |
-10 |
7 |
Darrell Wallace Jr. |
-12 |
8 |
Blake Koch |
-17 |
9 |
Ryan Reed |
-19 |
10 |
Jeremy Clements |
-20 |
The NASCAR XFINITY Series will head to Las Vegas Motor Speedway for the Boyd Gaming 300 on Saturday, March 5, 2016. Radio coverage of the race will be provided by the Performance Racing Network.
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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