Busch Wins NASCAR Cup Race at Pocono

By ESPN

Kyle Busch watched the number of laps he has led this season tick, tick, tick as it crossed 1,000, and he only really cared about the lap he hadn't led: the last one.

"We've had speed. We've been right there," Busch said. "We've been able to do what we should be doing and that's running up front."

For all that time up front, Busch also had the longest losing streak of his career, a rare recession over his time building a resume even NASCAR Hall of Famers would envy, with the 2015 Cup championship, 176 wins over three series and an elite ride for Joe Gibbs Racing.

He can add two more feats to the list -- 13 straight years with a Cup win and his first checkered flag at Pocono.

Busch used a bump-and-run on Kevin Harvick to take the lead with 16 laps left and held on to snap a 36-race losing streak and win the NASCAR Cup race at Pocono Raceway on Sunday.

"I never thought this day would happen," Busch said.

Busch won from the pole and gave Toyota its 100th Cup win since its 2007 debut. Busch had Toyota's first Cup win in March 2008 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

Busch had never gone a full season without winning a race. Charlotte Motor Speedway is now the only track where he has failed to win a Cup points race.

"I wasn't sure which one was going to be last," he said.

Busch had seven top-five finishes this season and was runner-up to Austin Dillon in the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte. All the near misses have gnawed at Busch, who won the All-Star race -- at Charlotte. But the exhibition race doesn't count in the season standings and Busch was in a victory slump that dated to the 2016 Brickyard 400.

He was racing for the lead last weekend in the Brickyard 400 when he wrecked with Martin Truex Jr., which led to a pit road altercation between members of both teams.

He also won his 176th career NASCAR race over the Cup (39), Xfinity (89) and Truck (48) series.

"We've all been fighting all year long and just wasn't sure why," Busch said. "This is something I've been waiting for for a long, long time. It's been a frustrating year but an awesome day today."

Harvick finished second, followed by Truex, Denny Hamlin and Brad Keselowski. Harvick, who hasn't won in 34 career races at Pocono, said he had nothing for Busch down the stretch.

"There was no battle. He was way faster than we were," Harvick said.

Crew chief Adam Stevens made the right calls a week after his confrontation on pit road with members of Truex's team. JGR suspended two of Truex's tire changers because of the profane outburst at the Brickyard. JGR provides the pit crew for Furniture Row Racing as part of a technical alliance, giving them the authority to suspend members of the FRR team.

Busch earned a spot in NASCAR's playoffs, a significant victory that left just three open spots with five races left before the 16-driver field is set. JGR had been winless overall until Hamlin won two weeks ago at New Hampshire.

"I didn't fear we wouldn't make the Chase with our points position," Stevens said.

Samantha Busch was stressed about her husband's season, tweeting before the race: "160 laps. We haven't even started and I'm a ball of nerves. Please let this be the day for the 18!"

It was. She was in tears over the final laps and celebrated in victory lane a win that her husband dedicated to his late grandmother.

Up next, a run at a second championship.

"I think our stats and our runs and our speed shows for itself," Busch said.

Other items of note at Pocono:

Loose nut

NASCAR found a loose lug nut on the 18 and Stevens could be fined $10,000. He does not face a suspension.

The big one

An eight-car wreck on the first lap knocked Aric Almirola and Matt DiBenedetto out of the race. Matt Kenseth got loose and spun to trigger the accident.

Almirola missed two months of the season with a fractured vertebra suffered in a race at Kansas.

"Sort of a bummer not to even make a whole lap," he said.

Johnson wreck

Jimmie Johnson wrecked and did not finish for the third time in the past four races. Johnson connected with Hendrick Motorsports teammate Kasey Kahne and was spun into the wall.

The seven-time Cup champion also crashed out of the first Pocono race in June.

Double duty

NASCAR held qualifying before the race instead of earlier in the weekend. Pocono had no Cup cars on the track Friday during the condensed schedule. NASCAR will try the two-day show again next week at Watkins Glen and Oct. 29 at Martinsville.

"Just thankful for the opportunity to have the two-day shows," Busch said. "We love spending time with our families, and being on the road, that is sometimes difficult."

Up next

The series shifts to the road course at Watkins Glen. Hamlin is the defending race winner.

Preece Claims Xfinity Race

Ryan Preece had waited his whole career for a chance to race in a car as strong as the No. 20 Toyota of Joe Gibbs Racing.

Preece then went out and proved what he could do with top-notch equipment.

The 26-year-old Preece survived a green-white-checkered finish to win the NASCAR Xfinity race Saturday at Iowa Speedway for his first career victory.

Preece, running the second of a two-race deal with the powerhouse JGR team, started from the pole and held off Kyle Benjamin on three restarts in the final 17 laps.

Preece, the Connecticut driver who is a regular in the lower-division NASCAR Whelen Modified series, crossed the start-finish line less than a car-length ahead of Benjamin.

"To be honest with you, I believed in myself enough to do it," Preece said of using his Xfinity budget for just two races. "It is very risky. I had multiple people in the business tell me that it was a little (riskier) than they would do."

The 19-year-old Benjamin was a career-best second, followed by Brian Scott, Brennan Poole and rookie Cole Custer.

William Byron, who began a streak of three wins in five races at Iowa last month, finished ninth and Justin Allgaier was 20th after leading 106 laps.

Preece finished 17th in the series a year ago, with only one top-10 in 33 starts.

For this season, Preece went back to the Modified series -- where he won a title four years ago -- while striking a deal with JGR to run twice in one of the best cars in the series.

Preece was second to Cup star Kyle Busch in New Hampshire in his first shot with the No. 20 car.

On Saturday, he held off Benjamin to make his season-long gamble pay off.

"I knew what I felt like I had to do to get attention, to make noise, and I felt like these two races were my shot," Preece said.

It was an encouraging finish for Benjamin, who started on the front row for the fourth time in as many races but finished above 16th for the first time.

"I'm really happy to finish second -- I really needed that," Benjamin said. "But to be as close as we were to winning, it kind of hurts. It makes you think about what you could have done better.

It was another gamble, by Allgaier earlier in the race, which helped put Preece and Benjamin in position for their thrilling finish.

Allgaier won the second stage and was leading when he decided to stay out on a caution about 75 laps from the finish.

The rest of the contenders went in for fresh tires and Allgaier's No. 7 car, on old tires, quickly fell back while Preece grabbed the lead.

The hope for Allgaier was that a caution would allow him to put on a new set of tires, and thus have the advantage for the finish.

The yellow flag came too late though, as Allgaier was forced to pit for fuel just a few laps before Sam Hornish Jr. drew a caution.

Preece, who spent much of the race battling Allgaier for first, led 141 laps.