NASCAR XFINITY: Busch beats Blaney with last-lap pass

Kyle Busch, left, kisses the yard of bricks next to his wife, Samantha, right, and son, Brexton, after winning the NASCAR Xfinity Series auto race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indianapolis, Saturday, July 25, 2015. Busch took advantage of Ryan Blaney’s last-lap bobble, making an inside pass on the back straightaway to win by 0.421 seconds. “Last season when we won the race, the horsepower we had on that final restart put me out front, and we were able to take the checkered flag”.

Blaney led the next 24 laps, but on the back stretch of the final lap he got too tight in Turn 2, giving Busch an opening.

Ryan Blaney (22) is chased by Kyle Busch (54) late in the Lilly Diabetes 250 at Indianapolis.

While Blaney acknowledged it won’t be easy to get over Saturday’s close call, Busch may have an even more hard challenge – getting back to 100 percent overnight.

“Fortunately there on that long run, I was behind Blaney and I was faster than he was, I could keep up with him, I could draft on him a little bit”, he said.

Busch, saving his tires in the extreme heat, made a last-lap run to Blaney’s bumper and forced a mistake as they entered turn two.

The NASCAR Xfinity Series schedule heads to Indianapolis today for the Lilly Diabetes 250 race, even as the driver standings continue to define themselves as the 2015 season goes on, with sixty-eight points now separating the top five spots on the leaderboard. “It’s a pretty bad feeling to throw one away here at the Brickyard”.

“I would love to be able to have those checked off the list and to not be looking for just one victory, but two or three at some of these places”, Busch said Saturday. “We drove from 11th to the lead and the driver gave it away”. It is all about clean air still.

RCR duo Ty Dillon and Brendan Gaughan stayed out to lead at the restart while Suarez won the race off pit road ahead of Erik Jones. “I can’t say enough about Chris Gayle (crew chief), all these guys on the Monster Energy Camry”.

Daniel Suarez, whose ARRIS Toyota was strong in the early laps, finished third behind the dominant duo.

Chris Buescher has opened up an impressive lead over the NASCAR Xfinity Series field, with thirty-one points separating him and the nearest second place competitor.

Instead, it was yet another stunning chapter in Busch’s remarkable comeback.

Brad Keselowski was second, followed by Kevin Harvick, Joey Logano and Dale Earnhardt Jr.

“I love the track, it feels like an old go-kart circuit we used to race on years ago”, said Hamilton, who has 38 career wins. Paul has also done reporting, columns and photography for Midwest Racing News since the mid-sixties, with the 1967 Hoosier 100 being his first big race to report for them. He began covering races in 1965 for Racing Wheels newspaper in Vancouver, WA as a reporter/photographer and his first credentialed race was Jim Clark’s historic Indy win.