Kurt Busch wins sixth-career race at Bristol
Kurt Busch held off Kyle Larson over the final 13 laps at Bristol to win his first race since the 2017 Daytona 500 on Saturday night.
Busch got to the lead by beating teammate Clint Bowyer on the previous restart. He dashed past Bowyer again on the final restart and built a gap on Larson over the final 13 laps that Larson and his fresher tires couldn’t overcome.
Busch was a guarantee to make the playoffs without the win as he entered the race fourth in the points standings. But now he’s in with a win — and, more importantly, five more bonus points — and can go for broke over the final two races of the regular season.
His race was almost overshadowed by the drive his brother Kyle had. Kyle Busch spun not long after the race went green and collected a ton of cars behind him — including Kurt. Kyle went two laps down but got the laps back and made his way up to second late in the race before pit stop issues put him back in the field. Kyle Busch’s car couldn’t get full of fuel because of the damage from the early wreck.
Kyle Busch brought out the race’s final caution as well with a spin because of a flat tire. Contact while racing three-wide with Chris Buescher and Jimmie Johnson cut Busch’s left-rear tire and caused the spin.
Larson started on the pole and looked like he had the best shot to beat Kurt Busch over the final laps. But he never got close enough to even attempt a pass after he took second. Bowyer restarted second on the final restart but got a horrible launch and stacked up the bottom line.
As Kurt Busch did a burnout following his first post-race interview with NBC he did it with the checkered flag on the hood of the car and his helmet on top of the car. Whoops.
The win is Kurt Busch’s first at Bristol since his win in the 2005 spring race and his sixth at the track overall. He had won five of his first 10 Bristol starts but was in the midst of a 12-year winless streak entering Saturday night’s race.
Here are the full results from Bristol.
1. Kurt Busch
2. Kyle Larson
3. Chase Elliott
4. Joey Logano
5. Erik Jones
6. Clint Bowyer
7. Ryan Blaney
8. Alex Bowman
9. Jimmie Johnson
10. Kevin Harvick
11. Trevor Bayne
12. Ryan Newman
13. Austin Dillon
14. Denny Hamlin
15. Kasey Kahne
16. Brad Keselowski
17. David Ragan
18. Daniel Suarez
19. Chris Buescher
20. Kyle Busch
21. Ty Dillon
22. Matt DiBenedetto
23. William Byron
24. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
25. Landon Cassill
26. Ross Chastain
27. Blake Jones
28. Timmy Hill
29. Jamie McMurray
30. Martin Truex Jr.
31. Aric Almirola
32. JJ Yeley
33. Reed Sorenson
34. Corey LaJoie
35. Jesse Little
26. Paul Menard
37. Michael McDowell
38. Bubba Wallace
39. AJ Allmendinger
40. Gray Gaulding
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Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.
