Kyle Busch Schools the Field at Richmond

Kyle Busch taught the field how to dominate a race in the Virginia 529 College Savings 250 Nationwide Series race at Richmond International Raceway. He took the green flag and didn’t look back, leading all 250 laps without relinquishing the lead once, in a commanding victory. Busch had control of the race right from the start, although some got close, none would get close enough. Not even six cautions for 38 laps would slow him down. This however, isn’t new to Busch, as the last driver to lead every lap in a Nationwide Series race was, yes you guessed it, Busch himself. In Phoenix in 2011 he led all 200 laps from the pole. This was Busch’s 67th win and 42nd pole in 289 Nationwide Series races.

“It’s been a while, if you think about it,” said Busch, who hasn’t won a Nationwide race at Richmond since 2011. “We’ve had a lot of bad luck lately, and it feels good, trying to get some mojo back, get ready for tomorrow night (Saturday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race), see what we can salvage there and roll on into the Chase.”

“All in all, the guys did a great job,” Busch continued. “They were really smart about what they needed, what we needed, what I needed.”

Coming in second and still keeping his points lead, was race phenom Chase Elliott who is having a storybook season so far. He was gaining on Busch but Busch had everything going his way tonight and it was just not meant to happen.

“I thought we had a really good NAPA Auto Parts Chevrolet,” Elliott stated, “We made gains really throughout the night and we were getting closer and closer. I think we were actually better than where we were in the spring when we were able to outrun Kevin (Harvick).”

Kevin Harvick, in spite of having an ill handling car at times, came in third after starting 15th. Harvick and Chase Elliott swapped second place several times. Harvick was also making good long runs and at times looked as if he would be able to challenge Busch at the end, but his car was not able to handle as well in short runs and he was unable to gain past third.

“Kyle had a much better car and was able to take off on the short runs and get way out there,” said Harvick, who thought he might have been able to catch Busch during the final run, if not for the caution.” We were off all weekend for whatever reason and I just never really could get the grasp on it, we had a good long run car but that was about it.” 

Ryan Blaney in the No.22 had a good run finishing in fourth place. Richard Childress Racing driver Brian Scott captured a fifth place finish.

Driver Regan Smith is having a great season and brought home sixth place. Dakoda Armstrong would bring home his best finish to date in seventh place, prior to that his best finish was 10th.

Rounding out the top ten finishers was Elliott Sadler in eighth, Ty Dillon in ninth place, and Chris Buescher finished the night in 10th place.

The Nationwide Series next travels to Chicagoland Speedway on Saturday September 13 for the Jimmy John’s Freaky Fast 300 Powered by Coca-Cola.

Your current top five in the Nationwide Series point standings are as follows:

1) Chase Elliott 916
2) Regan Smith -19
3) Ty Dillon-42
4) Elliott Sadler-54
5) Brian Scott-57

Complete Finishing Order: