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| James Gilbert/Getty Images |
Kyle Busch has won the “Buschy McBusch Race” 400 at Kansas Speedway, scoring his 58th victory in the NASCAR Cup Series, on what just happens to be his 36th birthday.
Winning a race with such a fitting name, Busch was more than just victorious. Kyle Busch had a strong day overall running within the top-5 for a majority of today’s race, and even led towards the beginning of the race to win stage 1. This victory is not the first time that Kyle Busch has won his birthday, that came on May 2nd 2009 at Richmond Raceway.
Kyle Larson, Hendrick Motorsports’ newest driver nearly had himself a second win of the 2021 season, leading 132 of the total 267 laps during today’s race. This strong run was obliterated on the final restart when a hard charging Larson was forced to start in the outside lane behind the No. 12 of Ryan Blaney. As the field came to the green flag, the inside lane (consisting of Kyle Busch, ahead of teammate Martin Truex Jr.) had a decent run. Kyle Larson had to give the No. 12 car a hard push in order to keep up with the inside lane, a push that proved to be too much. Larson’s push sent Ryan Blaney sideways into the corner, but the Blaney’s No. 12 Mustang was able to lean on Kyle Larson’s No. 5 and saved it. While Kyle Larson’s car sustained the worst damage, as he was sent into the wall, both the No. 5 and the No. 12 lost any chance at a win due to this incident.
A team that really had some tough luck towards the end of this race was JTG Daugherty Racing. The first part of this came as Ricky Stenhouse Jr. got loose on the back straightaway, which sent him right into the side of the No. 33 of Austin Cindric, and sustaining some real damage to his No. 47 Chevrolet. This damage was significant but fortunately he was able to get back out on track and complete some more laps. Then, a little later on, Christopher Bell lost control of his car, and was sent spinning through the field. During this incident the No. 20 of Christopher Bell collided with the No. 47 of Ricky Stenhouse Jr, and then the No. 37 of Ryan Preece. This was an unfortunate nail in the coffin for Ricky Stenhouse Jr., and was really no fault of his own. Ryan Preece had the lesser amount of damage, yet this damage was just enough to end Preece’s day.
While not as action packed, Kevin Harvick’s day was fairly decent with a solid run within in the top-10. Kevin Harvick, last year’s regular season champion, who was victorious 9 times has had a, put nicely, rough start to the season. Today we saw his luck get a little bit better as he was able to score his best finish of the season (thus far), finishing 2nd behind Kyle Busch.
Overall this race was really exciting, especially in the later half, as frequent cautions brought out more action, and greater intensity throughout the pack.
Kyle Busch won both stages 1 and 3 of this race, while Kyle Larson grabbed the stage 2 win.
The following are the complete race results:
1. Kyle Busch- No. 18
2. Kevin Harvick- No. 4
3. Brad Keselowski- No. 2
4. Matt DiBenedetto- No. 21
5. Chase Elliott- No. 9
6. Martin Truex Jr.- No. 19
7. Tyler Reddick- No. 8
8. Chris Buescher- No. 17
9. William Byron- No. 24
10. Austin Dillon- No. 3
11. Daniel Suárez- No. 99
12. Denny Hamlin- No. 11
13. Michael McDowell- No. 34
14. Ross Chastain- No. 42
15. Kurt Busch- No. 1
16. Ryan Newman- No. 6
17. Joey Logano- No. 22
18. Alex Bowman- No. 48
19. Kyle Larson- No. 5
20. Chase Briscoe- No. 14
21. Ryan Blaney- No. 12
22. Austin Cindric- No. 33
23. Anthony Alfredo- No. 38
24. Cole Custer- No. 41
25. Erik Jones- No. 43
26. Bubba Wallace- No. 23
27. Corey LaJoie- No. 7
28. Christopher Bell- No. 20
29. Aric Almirola- No. 10
30. Justin Haley- No. 77
31. BJ McLeod- No. 78
32. Ryan Preece- No. 37 - DNF
33. Garrett Smithley- No. 53
34. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.- No. 47 - DNF
35. Joey Gase- No. 15
36. Cody Ware- No. 51
37. Quin Houff- No. 00
38. Matt Mills- No. 55
39. Josh Bilicki- No. 52
Red Yellow Nevada = A winning setup @KyleBusch | @JoeGibbsRacing pic.twitter.com/1WdP0pYEOi
— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) May 2, 2021
Y'ALL ... THAT WAS AWESOME. Wow.
— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) May 2, 2021
Rate Ryan @Blaney's incredible save on a scale of 1-12: pic.twitter.com/Ba4exOgiKf
Ricky Stenhouse Jr.'s day goes up in (a lot of) smoke late at Kansas. https://t.co/CRI5SioW3e pic.twitter.com/9x1URMBhMb
— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) May 2, 2021
LATE CAUTION!
— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) May 2, 2021
Get to #NASCARonFS1 for a wild Kansas finish.
Stream it» https://t.co/6U7cNFWsII pic.twitter.com/kmZjnfEiHF
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