Photo Credit: Justin McFarland
By Justin Tucker
Another NASCAR XFINITY Series race, Another ho hum performance by Kyle Busch.
Busch kept adding to his career milestones during Saturday’s AutoLotto 200 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. He led 190 of 200 laps en route to his sixth victory of the 2016 season and 82nd career series win holding off his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Erik Jones by 1.499 seconds.
In the process Busch extended his own XFINITY Series record in laps led to 17,064 for his sure fire hall of fame career. This was Busch’s fifth career series win at the magic mile.
“I guess they’re big numbers,” said Busch, who ran the entire race on one set of left-side tires. “I really don’t know what big numbers are, and records are made to be broken.
“There may be somebody like me that comes along down the road that does the same thing that I’ve been fortunate enough to do… Running in this series is something fun for me to do, cool for me to do, and it also helps me out and gets me a little more experience.”
Brad Keselowski finished third followed by: Daniel Suarez and Austin Dillon rounding out the top five.
Brennan Poole, Justin Allgaier, Alex Bowman, Brendan Gaughan, and Elliott Sadler rounded out the top ten on Saturday.
Notables include: Brandon Jones 11th, Darrell Wallace Jr. 12th, Ryan Reed 14th, J.J. Yeley 16th, and Ty Dillon was 33rd after an incident with Alex Bowman just 76 laps in sent Dillon and the No.3 Chevrolet to the garage for extensive repairs.
“We had a great car today, but it’s probably my fault (that it’s torn up) because I was back there with a guy that doesn’t get to race very much. He certainly showed why that is.” Dillon said.
“I’m very frustrated. He’s beyond the corner, down the straightaway, and just turned left. I feel like he’s pretty lucky he’s still on the race track, and not in the garage with me. I’m pretty upset right now. That’s not how you race. You don’t turn people down the straightaway. I don’t know what to say, because I don’t have anything good to say except for the fact that I’m glad he’s not around right now.”
“He tried to wreck me about four times after (the accident),” Bowman said after the race. “I don’t blame him for being upset. He has every right to be upset…
“He drove me way up the race track (right before the contact). He obviously got tight underneath me. I had a ton of wheel in it, and it finally caught. I barely came off the wall. You come off the wall six inches and you tag somebody in the right rear. I hate that for the 3 car, but I definitely didn’t do it intentionally. He can think what he wants.”
