NASCAR at Texas results: Kyle Busch wins with 3 championship race spots up for grabs

NASCAR waited out the rain and Kyle Busch waited for his moment at Texas Motor Speedway.

“When he gets to two seconds we’ll turn you loose,” Busch’s crew chief Adam Stevens radioed to his driver in the final stage of Wednesday’s race, which was postponed three times over the course of 72 hours because of inclement weather.

After the race stalled, stalled, stalled, then finally started and sprinted to its conclusion without any cautions in the final stage, Busch was riding the tail of Clint Bowyer until the No. 14 driver ran low on fuel and Busch was able to make his pass for the lead.

Busch then fielded calls from Stevens for the rest of the race to simultaneously save fuel and drive fast to put him in Victory Lane for the first time this season at the Autotrader Echopark Automotive 500. The defending NASCAR champion nearly forgot his signature bow after the win.

“It’s been a really long time,” Busch said when reminded about the move on NBCSN’s broadcast.

Busch’s 57th career victory came after 33 winless races in 2020 and an early elimination from the playoffs in the Round of 12.

After NASCAR snapped its wet-weather streak following three days of delays in Fort Worth, and the sun peaked out over the track Wednesday afternoon, Busch raced to snap his winless streak.

“It kind of felt like a championship win,” Busch said, describing the nerves of racing in the final laps while trying to both save fuel and maintain the lead.

After Bowyer won the first stage, Busch won Stage 2 to gain a positional advantage heading into the final round, which went without caution for 118 laps. Busch said the narrative of 2020 haunted him in the cockpit as the race was winding to a close and he was racing for the win.

“Every little thing that can go wrong you feel like is going wrong or every little creak of the car you think, ‘Oh, I got a flat tire’ when everything’s fine,” Busch said.

But 2020 didn’t beat Busch at Texas, and he can finally allow the feeling of relief to sink in.

“I said, ‘I’m done. I’m good for the year. I’m retiring,’ ” he joked.

Other drivers have less of a reason to be relieved. Busch’s win means three Championship 4 spots are still open with one Round of 8 race remaining. Busch’s teammate and playoff driver Martin Truex Jr. finished in second place. Cup rookie Christopher Bell finished in third.

Truex Jr. sits 36 points below the four-driver cutoff after Texas, where a win would have put him through to the final round. Instead he’ll be scrapping with seven other drivers at Martinsville for the chance to compete for a trophy in two weeks. Truex said he didn’t look at the second-place finish as a loss.

“To run second all day long and lead some laps is tough to do,” Truex said. “And you gotta put yourself in position, in the top two or three to win races and so we were right there.”

Kevin Harvick and Denny Hamlin struggled to find their footing Wednesday as the teams are looking to be peaking, or at least maintaining the dominance they’ve shown all season. Both drivers reported vibration throughout the evening on the tough-tire track.

Joey Logano, who won at Kansas last week, is the only driver who has locked in his spot for the final round of the NASCAR playoffs. Harvick still sits 42 points up, and Hamlin, who finished in ninth, is now just two points ahead of Brad Keselowski, Chase Elliott and Alex Bowman heading to Martinsville.

While Texas might have looked gloomy for those drivers, the trip was a bright spot for Busch, who is able to maintain a 16-year streak of winning at least one race each season. He said that means a lot.

“We finally got it,” he said.

NASCAR 2020 playoff schedule

Round of 8

▪ 2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 1: Xfinity 500 at Martinsville Speedway

Championship 4

▪ 3 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 8: NASCAR Cup Series Championship at Phoenix Raceway

NASCAR post-Texas playoff standings

NASCAR Texas final race results

Pos.	Driver	Car No.	Time Behind
1	Kyle Busch	18	WINNER
2	Martin Truex Jr.	19	0.468
3	Christopher Bell	95	3.227
4	Ryan Blaney	12	8.174
5	Alex Bowman	88	11.895
6	Brad Keselowski	2	15.485
7	Kurt Busch	1	15.71
8	Mat DiBenedetto	21	20.752
9	Denny Hamlin	11	21.706
10	Joey Logano	22	21.971
11	Austin Dillon	3	22.276
12	Ricky Stenhouse Jr.	47	22.978
13	William Byron	24	23.032
14	Cole Custer	41	23.105
15	Tyler Reddick	8	24.203
16	Kevin Harvick	4	1 lap
17	Clint Bowyer	14	1 lap
18	Ryan Preece	37	1 lap
19	Ryan Newman	6	1 lap
20	Chase Elliott	9	1 lap
21	Erik Jones	20	1 lap
22	John Hunter Nemechek	38	2 laps
23	Aric Almirola	10	2 laps
24	Ty Dillon	13	2 laps
25	Corey LaJoie	32	3 laps
26	Michael McDowell	34	3 laps
27	Daniel Suarez	96	6 laps
28	Brennan Poole	15	6 laps
29	Josh Bilicki	7	8 laps
30	Timmy Hill	66	9 laps
31	Garrett Smithley	53	9 laps
32	Reed Sorenson	77	13 laps
33	Quin Houff	00	18 laps
34	Chris Buescher	17	24 laps
35	Chad Finchum	49	24 laps
36	Jimmie Johnson	48	55 laps
37	Joey Gase	51	150 laps
38	Bubba Wallace	43	275 laps
39	Matt Kenseth	42	275 laps
40	JJ Yeley	27	314 laps