Kyle Busch held off Carl Edwards to win his eighth Nationwide race of the year and fifth in his past six starts.
Autostock

Eight is enough as Busch holds off Edwards at ORP

By
Sporting News Wire Service
July 24, 2010
10:17 PM EDT

CLERMONT, Ind. -- This time, there was no controversial finish.

For the second Nationwide Series race in a row, Carl Edwards went side-by-side for the lead on the final lap. But Saturday night at O'Reilly Raceway Park, Kyle Busch held Edwards off to win the Kroger 200 at the 0.686-mile track -- his eighth victory of the 2010 season.

orp inline

Kyle Busch

Kroger 200

Results
Pos. Driver Make
1. Kyle Busch Toyota
2. Carl Edwards Ford
3. Aric Almirola Chevrolet
4. Trevor Bayne Toyota
5. Reed Sorenson Toyota

Last week at Gateway International Raceway, Edwards dumped Brad Keselowski coming to the checkered flag, triggering a multicar accident and forcing NASCAR to penalize both drivers.

This time, Edwards raced Busch cleanly, and Busch grabbed his 38th career Nationwide Series victory, second only to Mark Martin on the all-time win list. Martin has 48 wins in the series.

Busch said the thought of Edwards roughing him up for the lead on a green-white-checkered did enter his mind, and he did all he could to avoid trouble.

"You're so vulnerable running the top side like you do here that people can dive-bomb you on the bottom and slide up into you. I knew it was there, but if I could just keep enough momentum and just keep my car rolling, then I felt like any time he'd lay a bumper to me, he'd get sideways, too," Busch said. "... Carl was right there. He could've used me up more than he did, but it could've cost us both time instead of him just being able to get by. You've got to have a really, really methodical way of going at it here. There just wasn't enough time for him to do it in two laps."

As it turned out, Edwards wasn't about to put the leader in jeopardy this week.

"I wasn't going to move Kyle out of the way," Edwards said. "I inadvertently got into him just a little off of [Turn] 4 one time. Fortunately, it didn't cause damage to either of our cars. But, no, I couldn't move him out of the way. We've raced really well together. We've had one of the best races I've ever had in my life last year here. This probably feels like a better race to him because he won, but the one I won last year, that was one of the coolest races I've had. It seems like we've really raced well together the last couple years, and I enjoy that."

Edwards and some others on the lead lap pitted for fresh tires on Lap 162, with Edwards restarting 11th with 28 laps to go. Edwards sliced through the top 10 to get to second, and a caution came out with six laps to go.

"I thought it was an opportunity, but [Busch] got me on the restart. His tires were 30 laps older, and somehow he was able go as fast as he was going," Edwards said. "I think if we didn't get the caution, it was going to be really interesting with lapped traffic. But my hat's off to those guys.

"We didn't have any chance of winning that race without those new tires. [Crew chief] Drew [Blickensderfer] took the tires, and it gave us a shot to win. I can't complain about that."

On the green-white-checkered restart, which took the race one lap beyond its posted distance, Busch got the jump on Edwards into Turn 1, though Edwards tried to get to the inside lane on the white flag lap and on the final lap. But Busch was up to the task.

"It was good, hard, clean racing," said Busch, who led four times for 144 of the 201 laps. "That's what happens when you race guys cleanly over time and race each other with respect -- you get respect back."

Ron Hornaday, who won Friday night's Truck Series race here, ran in the top five for most of the race until he and the lapped car of J.C. Stout got together in Turn 2 on Lap 161.

"Lapper just turned left," Hornaday said after he drove his damaged car behind the wall.

Aric Almirola finished third, with pole-sitter Trevor Bayne fourth and Reed Sorenson fifth.

After the race, the left-front shock of Almirola's No. 88 car wouldn't rebound, and it was to be sent to NASCAR's research and development center for evaluation.

Notes-n-Nuggets

• Kyle Busch earned his 38th Nationwide win in his 189th start, 10 wins behind Mark Martin for the career lead.
• Kyle Busch became the second driver to win in eight of the first 20 races of the season. Jack Ingram won his eighth race of the 1984 season in the 20th race.
• This was Kyle Busch's third win at ORP in his sixth start, tied with Morgan Shepherd for the most ORP wins.
• Kyle Busch has won in five of his past six Nationwide starts.
• Kyle Busch has won five of the eight green-white-checkered finishes this season
• Carl Edwards (second) got his fifth top-two finish in the past eight races; he is now only 205 points behind points leader Brad Keselowski (gained 23 points).
• Aric Almirola (third) gave the No. 88 car its fifth top-five finish of the season; he is the 14th driver to drive for JR Motorsports this season.
• Trevor Bayne (fourth) scored his second consecutive top-five finish.
• Reed Sorenson (fifth) earned his 12th top-10 finish in 2010 and his sixth top-five.
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