Busch wins his first career NNS race at Talladega
Kyle Busch won under a yellow flag conditions after Mike Wallace’s car flipped upside down on Saturday in the Aaron’s 312 Nationwide Series race at Talladega Superspeedway.
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[/media-credit]Busch was spun out in a 21-car crash with 30 laps remaining. His car suffered damage but pit crew patched up the car good enough to draft with Joey Logano.
“I got hit like three times on the left side. I thought it was killed. I said it was killed. These guys did a great job putting it back together with great leadership from Jason Ratcliff (crew chief).” Busch said.
Busch and Logano were able to pass Trevor Bayne and Carl Edwards for the race lead during the second attempt at green-white-checkered finish and hold onto the lead before the yellow flag came out.
“This Z-Line Designs Camry doesn’t look the best, but it was certainly the best right there at the end, especially with the guy that was pushing me, Joey was a great teammate today. Can’t thank everybody from the whole JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing) organization, the guys from GameStop, thank those guys. They deserve to win just as much as we do right here. This is a team win and it’s cool to get it here.” Busch said.
This was the third consecutive Nationwide race at Talladega in which Logano has pushed the eventual winner to victory on the final lap.
“I wish we could have got the checkered flag and maybe could have done something with Kyle there. I was committed to pushing him and we were going to get all the way to the front one way or the other and then battle it out to the checkered flag.” Logano said.
Busch led a total of four laps en route to his first career NNS win at the 2.66-mile superspeedway.
Busch is now two victories away from tying Mark Martin’s NNS record of 49 career wins.
“All in all, the Mark Martin record, it’s two away, it’s three away from being in my own number. When and where that happens, we’re not going to pick a date.” Busch said.
Saturday’s race produced a series-record of 56 lead changes among 18 drivers, 11 cautions flags along two red flags.
Gordon takes Aaron’s 499 pole; Hendrick takes front rows
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[/media-credit]Jeff Gordon grabbed the Coors Light pole with a speed of 178.248 MPH (53.723 secs) on Saturday at Talladega Superspeedway.
“It was a great effort by the Drive To End Hunger Chevrolet, the whole team, Alan (Gustafson, crew chief) and the guys. We didn’t know what we could run because we didn’t make any qualifying runs. Obviously feeling pretty good about it right now.” Gordon said.
This was Gordon’s 70th career pole broke a tie for third place on the career list with Cale Yarborough and now only trails drivers Richard Petty (123) and David Pearson (113).
Hendrick Motorsports teammates also sweep of the top four spots for Sunday’s Aaron’s 499.
“This is as good as we could possibly ask for,” Gordon said. “If we could write the script, we couldn’t have written it any better. I had no idea what to expect and neither did the team. But we certainly didn’t expect to go out and qualify 1, 2, 3, 4 like that. It feels great. I’m not sure where that came from, except for great note-sharing among the teams and hard work.”
Jimmie Johnson qualified second, Mark Martin third, Dale Earnhardt Jr. fourth and Paul Menard qualified fifth.
“It’s an incredible engineering feat to be able to put the speed together with every single component – horsepower, aero, chassis, the whole thing,” Martin said. “It’s a huge feat by an organization to be able to pull that off.”
Starting Lineup
Aaron’s 499, Talladega Superspeedway
April 15, 2011, Race 8 of 36
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Pos. Driver Make Speed
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1 Jeff Gordon Chevrolet 178.248
2 Jimmie Johnson Chevrolet 177.844
3 Mark Martin Chevrolet 177.807
4 Dale Earnhardt Jr. Chevrolet 177.765
5 Paul Menard Chevrolet 177.702
6 Landon Cassill Chevrolet 177.685
7 David Ragan Ford 177.439
8 Kurt Busch Dodge 177.379
9 Brian Vickers Toyota 177.37
10 Clint Bowyer Chevrolet 177.353
11 Trevor Bayne Ford 177.353
12 Michael Waltrip Toyota 177.317
13 Juan Montoya Chevrolet 177.182
14 David Reutimann Toyota 177.143
15 Bobby Labonte Toyota 177.12
16 A.J. Allmendinger Ford 177.087
17 Greg Biffle Ford 177.074
18 Regan Smith Chevrolet 177.061
19 Brad Keselowski Dodge 177.032
20 Carl Edwards Ford 177.005
21 Jamie McMurray Chevrolet 176.872
22 Joe Nemechek Toyota 176.695
23 Ryan Newman Chevrolet 176.659
24 Marcos Ambrose Ford 176.575
25 Matt Kenseth Ford 176.519
26 Martin Truex Jr. Toyota 176.477
27 Jeff Burton Chevrolet 176.461
28 Travis Kvapil Ford 176.425
29 Denny Hamlin Toyota 176.37
30 Tony Stewart Chevrolet 176.347
31 Kasey Kahne Toyota 176.298
32 Kevin Conway Toyota 176.195
33 Steve Park Chevrolet 176.162
34 Kyle Busch Toyota 175.939
35 Dave Blaney Chevrolet 175.806
36 Joey Logano Toyota 175.41
37 Andy Lally* Ford 175.349
38 Kevin Harvick Chevrolet 175.154
39 David Gilliland Ford 175.134
40 Casey Mears+ Toyota 174.595
41 Terry Labonte+ Ford 174.271
42 Sam Hornish Jr.+ Dodge –
43 Bill Elliott Chevrolet Champion’s Provisional
