Busch Wins Truck Series Mountain Dew 250 In Controversial Finish at Dega

In a finish that looked to be taken straight from Kevin Harvick’s playbook with his win in the Cup race in the Spring, Kyle Busch pulled off the last lap pass to beat Aric Almirola to the line by 0.002 seconds.

“That’s cool,” Busch said after the race was over. “I didn’t want to do it. Aric deserved that race. He should’ve won it last year. I had the 13 right up under me and I wanted to protect my position. I went up high to block and then came down and I got under Aric. Once I got under him, there was no going back so I made my move.”

With the move, Busch crossed under the double-yellow line, which on the two restrictor plates – Daytona and Talladega – it is illegal to improve your position once under the line.

“I didn’t even know where the yellow was,” Busch said. “I was just loose through there and wanted to save my stuff.”

In reviewing the tape, it could be deemed that Almirola came down, causing Busch to go below the line.

“You can tell in that shot – he is well below the yellow line,” Almirola said. “If they give him that win, I feel like I let the team down, but there was nothing else I could’ve done.”

With the win, it puts Busch 45 points ahead of Germain Racing’s No. 30 driven by Todd Bodine in the owner’s championship.

Bodine, who has the driver’s championship pretty much locked up, had an eventful day on his way to finishing 18th.

Coming on to pit road under green, Bodine and Hornaday made contact, causing damage to both trucks.

Then on the next set of pit stops under caution, Bodine sped up to beat Busch off, yet was deemed over the speed limit.

Then with six laps to go, Bodine was making his way back through the field when contact from Grant Enfinger caused Bodine to get into Skinner, collecting numerous other trucks.

“The 95 gave me a shot out of hell,” Bodine said of the contact. “He was bumping me, but I don’t know where he was trying to send me.”

The result of the contact between Bodine and Skinner caused Ron Hornaday to flip over numerous times and land on his roof.

“Hornaday is actually joking around in there about how calm it was for the first part.” Bodine said of Hornaday in the care center.

“Harvick always told me that if I couldn’t win to make sure I brought the steering wheel home so here it is.” Hornaday said after coming out of the care center while holding the steering wheel.

Talladega is one of eight tracks that Hornaday hasn’t won a Truck race on, with the other seven tracks being Las Vegas, Michigan, Daytona, Chicago, Iowa, Darlington and Pocono.

Johnny Sauter finished third with Matt Crafton fourth and Ricky Carmichael fifth.

Unofficial Race Results

Mountain Dew 250 fueled by Fred’s, Talladega Superspeedway

October 30, 2010 – Race 22 of 25