He wasn’t dominant, but Kyle Busch had the superior strategy and executed the best in winning the Duck Commander 500 Saturday night at Texas Motor Speedway.
Kyle Busch wins the 2016 Duck Commander 500 at Texas Motor Speedway
Busch captured his second Sprint Cup win in a row Saturday night.
Busch passed Martin Truex Jr. with 32 laps remaining to take a lead he would not relinquish and win for the second consecutive week. Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished second, with Joey Logano third, Jimmie Johnson fourth and rookie Chase Elliott a career-best fifth. Truex slid to sixth.
Truex led a race-high 141 laps, but a decision not to pit for fresh tires with 45 laps remaining ultimately proved costly. When he didn’t stop, the majority of the leaders chose the opposite strategy and when the race resumed for a final time on lap 301 of 334 the Furniture Row Racing driver was at a significant disadvantage. One of those who pitted was Busch, who took four tires, and quickly dispatched Truex on the ensuing restart.
“We did everything we were supposed to do except for that one deal there,” Truex said. “I don’t know. It hurts, it’s tough, but we have a lot to look forward to this year. We have great race cars and we have a lot to look forward to. We’ll go back home and get to work and hopefully come out smarter and stronger.”
The victory was Busch’s second in row, having won the week previous at Martinsville Speedway. The reigning Sprint Cup Series champion owns a pair of wins and six top-10 finishes in seven races this season.
“The restart was going to be key,” Busch said. “If I could just get out in front of (Truex), I knew I could protect the rest of the race. He had a good restart, but we got a better one and I just had to get up on his door. He chose the inside and the inside has been winning the race all night long, but this time on the last restart it finally prevailed for us.”
A 13-car accident on the backstretch with 40 laps to go ensnared several big names including Johnson, Matt Kenseth, Denny Hamlin, Brian Vickers and the Richard Childress Racing cars of Austin Dillon, Ryan Newman and Paul Menard. The incident began when Dillon slid up the track in front of Johnson who made contact with Dillon’s bumper sending him into the outside wall then careening back down the track into a pack of cars.
“We were on older tires and I was trying to get all I could there,” Dillon said. “It’s part of trying to win a race. We put ourselves in a position to be out front, thinking that two laps wouldn’t mean much, but it did. That’s part of it.”
Rain delayed NASCAR’s first night of the season by 1 hour, 50 minutes. To better aid the drying efforts around the 1.5-mile oval, officials started the race under caution instructing drivers to run single-file up near the wall to build heat into the surface.
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