Kyle Busch races to 3rd win of year, moves closer to Chase

For those paying close attention to the NASCAR Sprint Cup 5 Hours ENERGY 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on Sunday they would have noticed three distinct races. It’s just a good thing they didn’t call any red flags.

Busch, the driver of the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, moved up two positions in the standings to 33rd. The only exception was Denny Hamlin, who was running in ninth position.

The No. 24 sustained severe damage and his crew furiously worked at repairs to avoid moving to a backup vehicle and dropping to the back of the field for Sunday’s race. What else do I gotta do to get to the lead lap? Last week, all four cars finished in the top five, but that was with a new temporary aero-package. All four of his drivers responded. Kevin Harvick would eventually pass Keslowski on lap 194, after a bad restart by Keslowski. However, Busch held on to win after a caution on the last lap officially ended the race. Rookie crew chief Brad Stevenscalled for the #18 to short pit, opting to take advantage of a few more laps on new tires than the competition at the risk of being trapped a lap down if a yellow fell before the leaders stopped.

Harvick did not offer a tussle as the caution came. The otherwise innocuous incident will be remembered more online for Bowman’s reaction of thrusting his hands in the air as a safety worker fell rushing to his auto.

Is a return to dirt-track racing a possible cure to Tony Stewart’s NASCAR woes? “Guys will go back and see what’s wrong”.

Not Kurt Busch. When he won at this track in 2008, Busch wanted to keep the win, but give back the trophy. At the halfway mark, Keselowski still led Ky. But the victory simply showed Busch’s determination.

That led to another round of green flag pit stops, which started on Lap 170 when Ku.

“This is such a dream come true”, Busch said. Jimmie Johnson was issued a penalty for speeding on pit road. Starting second, he may just open it today. Then to top it all off, he got two speeding penalties.

“Second seems like the story of our week here coming off Kentucky with a strong second-place run and then qualifying second here as well”, Logano said. Even if a auto ran well in Sunday’s heat, a similar setup or driving style may not produce a similar result in September.

Larson might be having second thoughts about not competing in the Eldora Speedway half-mile dirt track race for the Truck Series race on Wednesday night. The drivers did well to keep their rides from clanging into the walls or into their competitors. According to NASCAR rules, if this happens, the field is frozen at the moment of caution, and NASCAR will review the order of finish.

Jeff Burton, who retired from the series previous year, has the most race wins at New Hampshire with four. Edwards admittedly pressed himself into mistakes in his transition from Roush Fenway Racing (where he spent the first decade of his Sprint Cup career), Busch missed the first 11 races because of injuries from his Xfinity crash at Daytona, and Hamlin and Kenseth both struggled with the handling of their Camrys (particularly during a disastrous outing at Phoenix, where Hamlin proclaimed their cars “sucked”). Busch led for 96 laps to finish ahead of Brad Keselowski, Sprint Cup series points leader Kevin Harvick and hot shot Joey Logano.