Race report

NASCAR O'Reilly Atlanta

Kyle Busch takes NASCAR Xfinity win at Atlanta

Kyle Busch picked up in the NASCAR Xfinity Series this season right where he left off in the last one.

Jim Utter

Edited: Mar 5, 2017, 3:41 AM

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Kyle Busch, Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota celebrates his victory

Kyle Busch, Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota

Busch easily held off Brad Keselowski to win Saturday’s Rinnai 250 at Atlanta Motor Speedway in his first series start of the season. He won 10 times in 17 starts last season.

The victory is the 87th of Busch’s career. He is the all-time series leader in wins.

“Whoooooo! Hell yeah!” Busch explained over his team radio as he took the checkered flag.

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NASCAR Xfinity winner Kyle Busch faces "encumbered finish" penalty

Kyle Larson finished third, Kevin Harvick was fourth and Elliott Sadler ended up fifth.

“We weren’t great early on and we weren’t great in the middle but they worked on this car all day long. I’m pretty proud to put ourselves in Victory Lane two years in a row,” Busch said in Victory Lane.

“It means a lot to get (Scott Graves, crew chief) to Victory Lane. If anybody wants to put a bounty out there – I’m one-for-one right now.”

Larson appeared to have the race in hand until a late-race caution sent all of lead lap cars to pit road for fresh tires.

Busch was the first off pit road as Larson and Harvick barely avoided a collision exiting the pits.

“It’s always hard to take off on the top here with the worn out surface,” Larson said. “Disappointed to finish third here. Without the caution we could have probably finished them off.”

Stage 2

Harvick took over the lead on Lap 62 and never looked back in Stage 2, holding off Keselowski by more than five seconds for the segment win.

Busch ended up third in the 20-lap segment, followed by Larson and Denny Hamlin.

After the stage break, all of the lead lap cars pit for fuel and tires, with Harvick exiting pit road first followed by Larson and Hamlin.

Jeremy Clements was forced to pit road shortly before the conclusion of the segment, with brake issues.

Stage 1

Keselowski dominated much of the first 40-lap stage of the race, taking the lead on Lap 8 and holding in through Lap 40.

Pole-winner Kyle Busch ended up second in the segment, followed by Harvick, Hamlin and Hemric.

The top-10 finishers of each stage earns points on a 10-to-1 scale.

Ty Dillon and Blake Koch were involved in a wreck on Lap 3, which sent Koch to the garage. Dillon was able to continue on.

Cla#DriverManufacturerLapsTime 1 18 united_states Kyle Busch Toyota 163 2 22 Brad Keselowski Ford 163 0.606 3 42 Kyle Larson Chevrolet 163 2.198 4 41 Kevin Harvick Ford 163 2.312 5 1 Elliott Sadler Chevrolet 163 4.998 6 6 Darrell Wallace Jr. Ford 163 5.903 7 9 William Byron Chevrolet 163 7.387 8 2 Austin Dillon Chevrolet 163 7.778 9 21 united_states Daniel Hemric Chevrolet 163 8.440 10 00 Cole Custer Ford 163 10.707

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