Monday, July 20, 2009
Dodge Dealers 250
McClatchy Newspapers
MADISON, Ill. — On a unseasonably cool July night at Gateway International Raceway, Kyle Busch found a warm spot in the winner’s circle.
Busch continued his dominance of the NASCAR Nationwide Series on Saturday night by cruising to victory at the Missouri-Illinois Dodge Dealers 250.
Busch, who has a 212-point lead over Carl Edwards in the points standings, grabbed the lead on lap 172 when Kevin Harvick gambled on fuel strategy and lost when he ran out of gas on the backstretch.
“That long run where Harvick ran out of fuel, we were saving our stuff and saving fuel to try and make it to the end,” Busch said. “We were about seven laps short, but we were running consistent and slower lap times just trying to conserve and make it to the end. The car was really good at the end of the race.”
Piloting the No. 18 New Balance Toyota, Busch held off Reed Sorenson and Carl Edwards in a 19-lap green-flag sprint to the finish. Mike Bliss was fourth and Brad Coleman fifth.
Busch led 88 laps and his average speed was 103.286 mph in the race, which featured seven cautions for 34 laps and 12 lead changes among five drivers.
The win was Busch’s sixth of the season and 27th of his Nationwide Series career. The Las Vegas native has either won or finished second in the last six races on NASCAR’s junior circuit.
“Things went pretty good for us tonight,” said Busch, who started ninth. “We didn’t qualify as well as we wanted, but man, right at the start of the green flag, that thing was a rocket ship. It drove right up to the front and I was real pleased with the way it handled.”
Busch’s margin of victory over Sorenson was 1.001 seconds.
“It was a pretty fun race,” said Sorenson, who posted his fourth top-10 finish in five races at Gateway and first in 2009. “The double-car restarts definitely brought some excitement to the race and made it three wide here a couple of times, which is a little bit different here. I had a good time.”
So did the estimated crowd of 40,000 at Gateway, who enjoyed cool, fall-like conditions for the 200-lap race. Gone were the hot, muggy temperatures that highlighted the first 12 editions of the Missouri-Illinois Dodge Dealers 250.
Jackets and pullovers were commonplace throughout the crowd at the 1.25-mile oval. The thermometer read 68 degrees when the green flag finally dropped at 8:48 p.m., about 20 degrees cooler than the start of the 2008 race.