Kyle Busch is no stranger to victory lane in the NASCAR XFINITY Series, and for the eighth time of the year, Busch found his way there at the end of the night at Richmond International Raceway.
Busch led 197 of 250 laps en route to his 84th career XFINITY Series win. Busch won the race over second place Erik Jones by nearly seven seconds.
It wasn’t a perfect night for Busch, though. The 2008 series champion started the night in the seventh position in what was one of his worst qualifying positions of the year. Through a strong pit stop on the first caution of the night, he was able to go from fourth to the lead, and Busch never looked back.
Austin Dillon, who started on the pole and led the first 51 laps of the race, faded back after the first round of pit stops. Dillon went on to finish seventh in the race.
Busch’s teammate Erik Jones finished second followed by Brad Keselowski, Elliott Sadler, Justin Allgaier, Ty Dillon, Austin Dillon, Daniel Suarez, Alex Bowman and Brennan Poole.
Several big teams struggled in Friday night’s action including Richard Childress Racing teammates Brendan Gaughan and Brandon Jones who each finished multiple laps down and 18th and 23rd, respectively. Mid-Ohio race winner Justin Marks also struggled bringing his No. 42 Katerra Chevrolet home in the 22nd spot.
The big topic of conversation throughout the night at Richmond was about the XFINITY Series’ version of the Chase. With Richmond in the books, only one race remains for drivers to secure their spot in the 12-driver Chase. Leaving Richmond, the top-10 in points are locked in, while Blake Koch, Ryan Sieg, Dakoda Armstrong and Jeremy Clements will fight it out for the final two spots at Chicagoland Speedway.