It has never been done before, well not until this weekend! No one has ever won all three Nascar races on one weekend, well until Kyle “Wild Child” Busch did it this weekend. He scored his third race win of the season in the Nascar Sprint Cup series Saturday night with an emphatic win after starting 19th in the 500 lap race at the .533 mile short oval in Bristol, Tennessee. He had earlier won races at Richmond and Dover back in May and now lies third in the Sprint Cup series after 24 races, just 351 points behind series leader Kevin Harvick with the top 12 drivers going through to the Chase next month.
Busch started the weekend racing the Nascar.com Raceview Toyota Tundra from pole in the Camping World Truck series. He won the 206 lap race over series front runners Aric Almirola (Toyota) and Ron Hornaday (Chevy). Then the 25 year old Las Vegas native started third in the Nationwide Series race Friday night in his Z Line Design Toyota and fought his way to victory in the 250 lap race over Jason Leffler (Toyota) and veteran Elliott Sadler (Chevy). There were 43 starters in this race and 40 in the truck race!
Then on Saturday night he took his #18 Doublemint/Gibbs Racing Toyota from 19th starting position (of 43) to the lead in 172 laps, the race was initially led by the series Champion Jimmie Johnson in his Lowes/Hendrick Chevy from Tony Stewart (Chevy) and Carl Edwards (Afflac Ford). Johnson led 175 laps before becoming involved in an accident with Juan Montoya which sent him to the garage for 66 laps. Johnson finished 35th while Montoya was seventh in his Target/Ganassi Chevrolet. Stewart was rear ended by a back marker and lost many laps eventually finishing 27th. Denny Hamlin (Fed Ex Toyota) broke a driveshaft while challenging the leaders and lost 26 laps! Towards the end of the race it became a shoot-out between Busch, David Reutemann (Aarons Toyota), Jamie McMurray (Pro Bass/Ganassi Chevy), Clint Bowyer (Hamburger Helper/Childress Chev - who started 24th) and Kasey Kahne (Budweiser/Richard Petty Ford).
Reutemann led after the final pit stops but Kyle Busch set him up and retook the lead. But with just three laps to go he radioed his crew saying he had either a slow puncture or a track bar coming loose? But he held on for his third victory of the weekend on the half mile Bristol Speedway, over Reutemann, McMurray, Bowyer and Kahne - sweeping all three Nascar national races and becoming the only driver ever to do that. In fact it was his fourth win at Bristol and the 19th of his Nascar Sprint Cup career.
But can he win this years Sprint Cup Championship? He was 13th last year with 4 wins, tenth in 2008 with eight wins and fifth the year before with just one win! He has scored the most points over the last ten races and there have been eight different winners of those races. Time to front up and take control “Wild Child.” See NASCAR.COM
