Race report

NASCAR O'Reilly

Kyle Busch notches another Phoenix win

Joe Gibbs Racing’s hot shoe Kyle Busch likes Phoenix, and he now has six Nationwide victories at the one-mile oval.

Amanda Vincent

Edited: Nov 10, 2013, 6:00 AM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

Race winner Kyle Busch

The No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota of Kyle Busch dominated the ServiceMaster 200 NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Phoenix International Raceway on Saturday, leading 168 of the 200 laps that made up the race en route to his 12th series win of the season and the sixth of his career at PIR. Also winning a Phoenix earlier in the year, Busch's win on Saturday gave him a season sweep of Nationwide racing at the track.

"Just can't say enough about (crew chief) Adam Stevens and all the guys at JGR," Busch said. "All in all, a great race today -- a really fast car."

The No. 31 Turner Scott Motorsports Chevrolet of Justin Allgaier finished second after passing the No. 3 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet of Austin Dillon on the final lap. Dillon wound up third.

"Can't get too upset," Dillon said. "I think he (Allgaier) got into me; he said he didn't"

With the lead, Dillon increased his championship points lead, just slightly, over the No. 12 Penske Racing Ford of Sam Hornish Jr. Hornish finished fifth after pit strategy put him near the front. When the yellow flag waved on lap 130, the No. 6 Roush Fenway Racing Ford of Trevor Bayne and Hornish stayed out on the track while everyone else headed down pit road. After previously running at the end of the lead lap, Hornish restarted second and ran in the top-six for the remainder of the race. The No. 7 JR Motorsports Chevrolet of Regan Smith finished just ahead of him in fourth.

"It was tough. We were up and down all day today," Hornish said. "While it's not going to victory lane, it was like a victory."

After a caution on the first lap of the race, the event ran green until the second caution on lap 105. During the long green-flag run, Busch led all but a couple of laps during a cycle of green-flag pit stops just past lap 75. For most of that run, the No. 22 Penske Racing Ford of Brad Keselowski and the No. 33 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet of Kevin Harvick ran second and third to Busch while Dillon was a mainstay as the highest-running Nationwide Series regular in fourth and sometimes fifth, also behind the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota of Matt Kenseth.

The yellow flag waved often in the second half of the race, bringing the total number of cautions to seven. The fifth caution of the race on lap 142 involved Keselowski. He spun and hit the wall after receiving contact from the No. 2 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet of Brian Scott. After extensive repairs to his car, Keselowski wound up finishing 19th. His No. 22 team remained in first in regards to the owner's points standings, but Busch's No. 54 team closed the gap to four points for next Saturday's season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

"All in all, that's what this sport is all about," Busch said of Keselowski's troubles. "We had bad luck last week."

Busch lost the lead during the lap 130 caution when Bayne and Hornish stayed out. When the race returned to green, Allgaier moved into the lead and maintained the position until Busch reclaimed it for good with 47 laps to go.

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article Phoenix fits Dillon's style

Next article Kligerman overcomes pit-road infraction to collect 12th place finish

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

Why Toyota’s 2026 WEC triumphs have put it into the all-time greatest endurance racing team debate

WEC

Barcelona

Why Toyota’s 2026 WEC triumphs have put it into the all-time greatest endurance racing team debate

WRC star Thierry Neuville makes successful historic circuit racing debut

WRC

WRC WRC 1 h

WRC star Thierry Neuville makes successful historic circuit racing debut

Christian Horner: Kimi Antonelli has 'earned' the right to be Mercedes' number one

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

Singapore GP

2 h

Christian Horner: Kimi Antonelli has 'earned' the right to be Mercedes' number one

Why Oscar Piastri has struggled to show his best with this year's McLaren MCL40

Formula 1

Why Oscar Piastri has struggled to show his best with this year's McLaren MCL40

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts