NCWTS: Busch Scores Elusive Martinsville Victory

Kyle Busch’s list of accomplishments in all three of NASCAR’s top series reads like a Charles Dickens novel.

However coming into Saturday’s Alpha Energy Solutions 250 at Martinsville Speedway, there was one glaring omission from Busch’s Hall of Fame resume – a win at the paper clip.

Busch was 0 for 30 in his career at Martinsville and made his first truck start of the 2016 season count by leading a race high 123 laps and holding off John Hunter Nemechek on a hectic green-white-checkered finish by .425 seconds to claim his first grandfather clock.

“I’m sure my wife will figure it out,” Busch said. “I have a couple owner’s ones, but never one of my own”. “It’s a day that I have been looking for a long time, and just haven’t had the pieces come together”. “I didn’t know if we would have the pieces come together today due to all the tire strategies and cautions. Wes and I both leaned on each other and had no idea, so we just dumbed into this, I think. Got to thank everybody at Kyle Busch Motorsports. It’s neat to win here at Martinsville.”

Even though he didn’t score the victory on Saturday, John Hunter Nemechek continued his rise through the Truck Series by finishing second and taking over the Truck Series points lead, just three points ahead of Parker Kligerman. Nemechek said tires were the major difference at the end.

“We were still on older tires than he was,” Nemechek said. “We had one set of stickers to use in the pits to where everyone would pit but had to stay out for track position. I got to hand it to these guys at NEMCO Motorsports. We brought it home in P2 – one short – but we’ll go get them in Kansas.”

William Byron, one of the young guns this year at Kyle Busch Motorsports, brought home his first career top five finish with a third place showing.

“It was tough,” Byron said. “There were different ebbs and flows of the race”. “Middle part of the race we weren’t really good, but we came on strong at the end”. “Just proud of my entire Kyle Busch Motorsports team…….I think so. Atlanta was disappointing. I had a month to think about it. It made me work harder and allowed me to get what we deserved at Atlanta. To get a good run and get our season back on track here is good.”

Kyle Larson made a rare Truck Series appearance on Saturday piloting his No.24 GMS Racing entry to a 4th place finish after leading 79 laps.

“It was a solid day,” Larson said. “I had a lot of fun here. It was good to lead some laps. It’s been a good solid weekend as I’ve been fast in the truck and Cup Series, so I think doing double weekend had helped us both out. I thought we could’ve gotten a better finish, but John Hunter Nemechek forgot that he had a brake pedal on one of the restarts there.”

Timothy Peters was able to avoid the carnage and continue his strong track record at Martinsville finishing 5th.

“It was really crazy,” Peters said. “We started off with the balance being tight and it’d wear the tires out really bad. Shane and the guys made adjustments through the pit stops, and we finally hit on it – not enough, but enough to make some moves. It’s good to go come out here with a good finish and hope we can go to Kansas and Charlotte and get ourselves in the Chase.”

Spencer Gallagher, Matt Crafton, Parker Kligerman, Cameron Hayley, and Rico Abreu rounded out the top ten on Saturday.

Some other notable finishers on Saturday were: Ryan Truex in 12th, pole sitter Ben Rhodes in 16th, Daniel Suarez 18th, Tyler Reddick in 20th, and Johnny Sauter finished 32nd after blowing a right front tire and making hard contact with the wall.

“I melted the bead out and the Smokey Mountain Herbal Snuff Chevrolet is junk now,” Sauter said. “I didn’t think I was running hard, and I melted the bead. Guess I have to learn how to run around here without any brakes.”