Perhaps it was fate for a driver named Busch to win the Cup Series Buschy McBusch Race 400 at Kansas Speedway on his birthday. Or maybe it was simply a talented driver having the dominant car toward the end of the race when it matters the most.
Kyle Busch’s win at Kansas capped off a weekend sweep after claiming the Camping World Truck Series victory Saturday night. It was his 58th Cup Series win in 581 starts and his sixth top-10 finish this season.
“Just a great day to be able to put this M&Ms Camry up front,” Busch said after the race. Great to be able to get everyone back in Victory Lane again this early in the season and get those points going our way.”
Even Busch couldn’t help but see the humor of the situation, adding, “I just remembered it’s the Buschy McBusch Race and a Busch won. What do you know?”
But what he was really excited about was getting the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota back to victory lane.
“You talk about ups and downs of racing – there’s been a lot of downs of life for us. I have a great opportunity and a great job, no doubt.” Busch said. “Just a great day to be able to put this M&M’s Mix Camry up front. Want to thank Hy-Vee, our retail partner. They did a huge promotion for us this year with M&M’s and Rowdy Energy. It’s cool to get everybody back to victory lane again this early in the season.”
Busch was the stage one winner and Kyle Larson won stage two, leading a race-high 132 laps. Larson, however, got into the wall on the final restart while trying to push Ryan Blaney to the lead, and finished 19th. Blaney had to settle for a 21st place finish.
“Hate that I screwed that up and cost us a good finish,” Larson said.
Harvick finished second and has yet to win this season but was pleased with how competitive his car was during the race and how the team effectively used pit strategy to put themselves in the best possible position.
“We had the right pit strategy once the cautions came out there. We had the pit road penalty and came in for tires and Rodney made a great call of coming back in to put tires on and that kind of put us on the offense. We were able to be really aggressive on the two restarts we had at the end and were able to make up some ground. Everybody on our Busch Light Ford Mustang did a great job today of just hanging in there. We made a few mistakes, but we made our car better throughout the whole day and were more competitive than we had been in the last couple mile-and-a-half races.”
Brad Keselowski finished third for his fifth top-five this year.
“We weren’t quite as fast as we wanted to be. The Gibbs cars were real fast and Kyle Larson was screaming fast, so a very similar race for us to Vegas, kind of right there on that edge of the top five. We just need a little bit more, but we almost stole one there with pitting and the yellow came out there with 10 to go and it was just kind of the restart chaos and we all run into each other, whether it’s me running into someone or somebody else running into somebody it’s just part of it, but, all in all, not a bad day for the Verizon 5G Ford Mustang.”
Matt DiBenedetto and Chase Elliott rounded out the top-five. Chase Briscoe placed 20th and was the highest-finishing rookie.
The Cup Series heads to Darlington Raceway on May 9 for the Goodyear 400 at 3:30 p.m. ET on FS1.
NASCAR Cup Series Race Number 11
Race Results for the 2nd Annual Buschy McBusch Race 400
Sunday, May 2, 2021
Kansas Speedway – Kansas City, KS – 1.5 – Mile Paved
Total Race Length – 267 Laps – 400.5 Miles
| Fin | Str | No | Driver | Team | Laps | S1Pos | S2Pos | S3Pos | Pts | Status |
| 1 | 9 | 18 | Kyle Busch | M&M’s Mix Toyota | 267 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 59 | Running |
| 2 | 4 | 4 | Kevin Harvick | Busch Light For The Farmers Ford | 267 | 7 | 10 | 0 | 40 | Running |
| 3 | 1 | 2 | Brad Keselowski | Verizon 5G Ford | 267 | 4 | 4 | 0 | 48 | Running |
| 4 | 5 | 21 | Matt DiBenedetto | Dickies/Menards Ford | 267 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 33 | Running |
| 5 | 17 | 9 | Chase Elliott | UniFirst Chevrolet | 267 | 6 | 5 | 0 | 43 | Running |
| 6 | 15 | 19 | Martin Truex Jr. | Auto-Owners Insurance Toyota | 267 | 0 | 7 | 0 | 35 | Running |
| 7 | 11 | 8 | Tyler Reddick | Childress Vineyards Chevrolet | 267 | 3 | 8 | 0 | 41 | Running |
| 8 | 16 | 17 | Chris Buescher | autoTempest Ford | 267 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 29 | Running |
| 9 | 2 | 24 | William Byron | Axalta Chevrolet | 267 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 34 | Running |
| 10 | 6 | 3 | Austin Dillon | Bass Pro Shops/Tracker Off Road Chevrolet | 267 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 27 | Running |
| 11 | 21 | 99 | Daniel Suarez | Camping World Chevrolet | 267 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 26 | Running |
| 12 | 20 | 11 | Denny Hamlin | FedEx Freight Toyota | 267 | 9 | 3 | 0 | 35 | Running |
| 13 | 3 | 34 | Michael McDowell | CarParts.com Ford | 267 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 24 | Running |
| 14 | 24 | 42 | Ross Chastain | Clover Chevrolet | 267 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 23 | Running |
| 15 | 28 | 1 | Kurt Busch | Monster Energy Chevrolet | 267 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 22 | Running |
| 16 | 14 | 6 | Ryan Newman | Hy-Vee Ford | 267 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 21 | Running |
| 17 | 29 | 22 | Joey Logano | AAA Insurance Ford | 267 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 20 | Running |
| 18 | 25 | 48 | Alex Bowman | Ally Chevrolet | 267 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 19 | Running |
| 19 | 32 | 5 | Kyle Larson | HendrickCars.com Chevrolet | 267 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 37 | Running |
| 20 | 19 | 14 | Chase Briscoe # | HighPoint.com Ford | 267 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 17 | Running |
| 21 | 7 | 12 | Ryan Blaney | Menards/Moen Ford | 267 | 8 | 6 | 0 | 24 | Running |
| 22 | 38 | 33 | * Austin Cindric(i) | MoneyLion Ford | 267 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Running |
| 23 | 22 | 38 | Anthony Alfredo # | Dude Wipes Ford | 266 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 14 | Running |
| 24 | 10 | 41 | Cole Custer | HaasTooling.com Ford | 266 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 13 | Running |
| 25 | 27 | 43 | Erik Jones | Black Entrepreneur Initiative Chevrolet | 266 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 12 | Running |
| 26 | 13 | 23 | Bubba Wallace | Dr. Pepper Zero Sugar Toyota | 266 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 11 | Running |
| 27 | 26 | 7 | Corey LaJoie | Nations Guard Chevrolet | 265 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 10 | Running |
| 28 | 8 | 20 | Christopher Bell | Rheem Toyota | 265 | 10 | 9 | 0 | 12 | Running |
| 29 | 18 | 10 | Aric Almirola | Smithfield/Price Chopper Ford | 264 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 | Running |
| 30 | 31 | 77 | Justin Haley(i) | NASCAR TRUCKS AT KNOXVILLE Chevrolet | 263 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Running |
| 31 | 30 | 78 | BJ McLeod(i) | Celsius Ford | 260 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Running |
| 32 | 12 | 37 | * Ryan Preece | Nature Valley Chevrolet | 259 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | Accident |
| 33 | 36 | 53 | Garrett Smithley(i) | Smart Sanitizer Chevrolet | 259 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Running |
| 34 | 23 | 47 | Ricky Stenhouse Jr. | Kroger/Energizer Chevrolet | 258 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | Accident |
| 35 | 35 | 15 | Joey Gase(i) | Explore Branson Chevrolet | 258 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Running |
| 36 | 33 | 51 | Cody Ware(i) | Nurtec ODT Chevrolet | 257 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Running |
| 37 | 34 | 0 | Quin Houff | 8 Ball Chocolate Whiskey Chevrolet | 256 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | Running |
| 38 | 39 | 55 | * Matt Mills(i) | Siebert Electric/J.F. Electric Ford | 255 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Running |
| 39 | 37 | 52 | Josh Bilicki | RBR Aviation Ford | 250 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | Running |
Time of Race: 3 Hrs, 5 Mins, 21 Secs.
Average Speed: 129.647 MPH
Margin of Victory: .336 Seconds
Stage 1 Top 10: 18, 5, 8, 2, 24, 9, 4, 12, 11, 20
Stage 2 Top 10: 5, 18, 11, 2, 9, 12, 19, 8, 20, 4
Caution Flags: 7 for 36 laps; Laps: 27-30 (Competition [78]); 82-87 (Stage 1 Conclusion [37]); 162-167 (Stage 2 Conclusion [17]); 231-235 (Debris Frontstretch [99]); 246-249 (#11 Incident Turn 1 [48]); 254-257 (#33, 47 Incident Backstretch [6]); 259-265 (#20, 37, 47 Incident Turn 4 [14]).
Lead Changes: 18 among 6 drivers; B. Keselowski 1-63; K. Larson 64; B. Keselowski 65-73; K. Larson 74-76; K. Busch 77-83; K. Larson 84-121; R. Stenhouse Jr. 122-144; K. Larson 145-162; K. Busch 163; K. Larson 164-167; K. Busch 168; K. Larson 169-212; C. Buescher 213-225; K. Larson 226-230; D. Hamlin 231; K. Larson 232-236; D. Hamlin 237-242; K. Larson 243-256; K. Busch 257-267.
Sunoco Rookie of the Race: Chase Briscoe, #14
(i) Ineligible for driver points in this series
