honoluluadvertiser.com

Sponsored by:

Comment, blog & share photos

Log in | Become a member
The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Monday, May 17, 2010

Busch pulls away for NASCAR win


Associated Press

Hawaii news photo - The Honolulu Advertiser

Kyle Busch celebrates in victory lane after winning the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series' Autism Speaks 400 race.

MATT SLOCUM | Associated Press

spacer spacer

DOVER, Del. — Kyle Busch would like to believe he would have defeated Jimmie Johnson even without the four-time champion making a rare pit road mistake.

Busch never will know, and he doesn't really care.

When Johnson was penalized for speeding on the final pit stop, that was all the opportunity Busch needed to pull away late yesterday and win his second race in two days at Dover International Speedway.

Johnson made a quick burst out of the box and accelerated trying to catch a departing Busch coming off pit road. Busch joked that he wanted to "coax him into speeding a little bit."

"I don't know if that happened or not, but I'm going to say it did," Busch said.

Busch's victory capped a wildly successful weekend for the Joe Gibbs Racing driver.

Busch missed the tripleheader sweep on the one-mile concrete track by just a couple gallons of gas.

He was in position to win the Trucks Series race on Friday but ran out of gas at the end. He easily took the checkered flag in Saturday's second-tier series race and raced about 800 miles in three days.

"It's not going to hurt my feelings too bad to go to bed tonight and know that I lost Friday," Busch said. "I'm going to think more about today."

Yesterday, Busch swapped the lead with Johnson throughout most of the 400-mile race. He expected the duel to continue until Johnson was clocked at 40.09 mph in a 35 mph zone.

"I just had too much forward bite leaving the pit box and got going too fast and got busted," Johnson said.

Busch was sorry he was denied an epic late-race showdown.

"Unfortunately for those guys, they got busted for speeding and we weren't able to beat them outright," Busch said. "I'm going on a limb to say we could beat them today with or without the penalty."

Johnson finished 16th. Jeff Burton was second and Matt Kenseth third.

ELSEWHERE

Monaco GP: Mark Webber won the Monaco Grand Prix from the pole to lead Red Bull to a 1-2 finish on the famous street circuit yesterday. Teammate Sebastian Vettel overtook Robert Kubica of Renault at the start to finish 0.4 seconds behind Webber.

Southern Nationals: Larry Dixon roared to his 52nd career Top Fuel win yesterday at the Southern Nationals at Commerce, Ga. Dixon won his fourth event of the season with a pass of 311.49 mph in 3.913 seconds while opponent Brandon Bernstein red-lighted.