Saturday, August 23, 2014
Associated Press
BRISTOL, Tenn.
Ryan Blaney bolted past Kyle Busch on a restart with six laps remaining and won Friday night’s NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway for his second career victory.
It was a surprising finish after Busch, seeking to become the first driver to win four consecutive races in the series on the 0.533-mile oval, had dominated, especially on restarts.
Battling at various times against the youngest and brightest stars in the series, Busch generally made quick work of them. He led 161 of the 300 laps and seemed poised for his record 67th victory in the series.
But on the final restart, he was holding back, as was his prerogative as the leader, until Blaney suddenly darted to the lead from the inside line, cleared Busch’s car and sailed off to the victory.
“Kyle didn’t go on that last restart,” Blaney said, referring to the marked area on the track wall inside which the leader is supposed to accelerate, with the rest of the field following his lead.
“He said his tires were jacked up and we got to the second line and we just went,” said Blaney, the son of Trumbull County native and NASCAR driver Dave Blaney.
Busch managed to get close to Blaney’s bumper, but that was it.
“I was driving my guts out trying to stay ahead of him,” Blaney said.
Busch, meanwhile, seethed like he had something taken away from him.
“My rear tires weren’t on the race track and I couldn’t accelerate,” he said, suggesting Regan Smith, restarting behind him, had lifted Busch’s car off the track to eliminate his traction.
“NASCAR doesn’t police it and so everybody keeps jacking around on it and one of these days I’m just going to lock all four [tires] down and stack the whole field up,” Busch said.
Chase Elliott, who finished third, saw it differently.
“I saw Kyle make a rare mistake,” Elliott said, adding that Busch was spinning his tires.
Elliott finished third and remained the series points leader by 13 over Smith.