Busch Holds Off Charging Hornaday At Nashville

Kyle Busch celebrates after winning both Nashville Superspeedway NASCAR Camping World Truck Series races in which he has started. Busch raises a Gibson guitar Friday in Nashville Superspeedway's Victory Lane.

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Kyle Busch had to work a little harder than he expected, but he still scored a dominant victory in the Bully Hill Vineyards 200 NASCAR Camping World Truck race Friday night at Nashville Superspeedway.

Ron Hornaday Jr. made things interesting, passing Busch shortly after a restart with eight laps remaining. After another caution, though, Busch returned the favor, slipping under Hornaday in Turn 3 with two laps to go to complete a pole/victory sweep for the second year in a row at Nashville.

“I felt like we had a dominant truck," Busch said. “There with about 10 to go, the race really got started and got really interesting."

Busch led to the green on a restart with nine laps to go, but Hornaday made a bold, sneaky move to get the top spot.

“Hornaday got a good restart and put enough drag on my spoiler that he kind of slowed me down on the frontstretch and stayed alongside me," Busch said. “I cleared him through (Turns) 1 and 2 and pulled up in front of him, but he had a little bit of momentum on me and pulled back to my inside down the backstretch and made a bold move driving it so far into the corner."

Hornaday’s truck slid a little through Turn 3, and he and Busch moved up the track, with Hornaday grabbing the lead.

The yellow waved again, giving Busch a chance to turn the tables.

“There on the last restart, I did the same thing," Busch said. “Luckily we had that opportunity and got back to him and was able to win the thing. It would’ve really been a shame if we weren’t able to win this thing."

In the process, Busch led his 20,000th lap across the Sprint Cup, Nationwide and truck series. In two truck races at Nashville, Busch has two wins, two poles and 271 of 300 laps led. The victory was Busch’s second of the season and 26th in the truck series.

“Kyle had the dominant truck all day, and he had clean air," Hornaday said. “I had to wear my stuff out trying to stay with him. That restart, that’s the only opportunity I had to run with him. I just gave a show for the fans. That’s all I could do."

With shot tires, Hornaday was also passed for position by rookie Nelson Piquet Jr. and Timothy Peters, who finished second and third, respectively.

“I drove it too hard and wore the tires off," Hornaday said.

Hornaday was fourth, followed by James Buescher, Matt Crafton, Johnny Sauter, David Starr, Craig Goess and Parker Kligerman.

An emotional Nelson Piquet Jr was celebrating after finishing second, his first podium in NASCAR. Only problem is, this is NASCAR and there is no podium. Piquet finished second behind Kyle Busch who normally races in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. If Busch stayed out of the junior series as he should, Piquet may have won.

Piquet's result at Nashville in the Kevin Harvick Inc #8 truck at the fifth race of the 2011 season of the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series marks the best result in history for a Brazilian driver in one of the top three NASCAR categories. It came on his first trip to Nashville after he started the race from fourth position – his third top-ten qualifying result in a row.

Piquet said: “I’m so happy! We had a very complicated start to the year, but I knew the results would come. In reality, the season has just started for me. I hope to keep racing better and better for the rest of the year. Even more than scoring the second place result, this race was so worthwhile for learning. It is very important to keep learning different skills here because it is a very different kind of racing to open wheel and to show maturity. The team has to be able to know I can do it and be confident in me."

Busch goes for the Nashville sweep in Saturday’s Nashville 300 Nationwide Series race.

Notes: Piquet’s first top five came in his 10th start. He moved up eight spots in the standings to 17th. … Sauter maintained the points lead, with Peters moving to second, three back. Crafton is third, Hornaday fourth and rookie Cole Whitt fifth. … Busch’s 26th win came in his 88th start. He is fourth on the all-time list, two wins behind Mike Skinner and Jack Sprague, who are tied for second. Hornaday is first with 47 wins.

KYLE BUSCH QUOTES

Are you happy to be in victory lane again at Nashville?
“I can’t say enough this team, these guys. Happy Easter to everybody out there — it’s a happy Easter weekend. We’re proud to be out here in Nashville racing in Dollar General’s backyard. I can’t tell you enough about these guys on this team — phenomenal job. This Toyota Tundra was awesome thanks to the Triad engine guys who gave us great horsepower. This is a series I love to race in and participate in."

Did you hear the fans cheering for you tonight after you took the checkered flag?
“It was — it was a good show. It might have been boring I guess, for about the first 140 laps or so but Ron (Hornaday) came up there and made things interesting. He’s hell of a wheelman, that old man still gets after it, I’ll tell you that. He definitely gave us a whirl win there — I pulled the same move on him that he pulled on me. You just drive it off into turn three and slide up the race track in front of the guy, so I said, ‘Sure, I’ll do the same thing.’ I got a run on the top and (he) went up to the wall just like I did and I went to the bottom and I said we’re either both going to wreck or we’re both going to make it out of here. We made it happen."

Were you confident your truck was strong enough to stick on the bottom for the win?
“Our truck was really good, it had a great feel to it all night long. Eric (Phillips, crew chief) did a really good job of adjusting on it. We made some minor tweaks to it as the track cooled off and continued to get a little bit better for us. It was really good to get some notes on it for tonight so maybe we can help Jason (Ratcliff, NNS crew chief) tomorrow night."

What were you thinking during the last 10 laps of the race?
“We had a restart there and (Ron) Hornaday got on my corner panel and kept the drag on the truck when he kept alongside of me down the front stretch. He had position on me and I didn’t want to get loose on the bottom side of him. I cleared him off of turn two and then he went to my bottom, and I’m like, ‘Oh boy.’ I tried to give him a little bit of room. He drove it so far in there, I’m like, ‘Well damn, I guess we’re just going to go up the race track.’ He didn’t clear me yet. I just did what I needed to do to try to not wreck and try to get him back on either the next couple laps or the ensuing restart, which fortunately we had. I just pulled the same trick on him. I said, ‘How far do you want to drive it down in there?

" How much did the track change as the race unfolded?
“It changed a little bit with just the cooling temperatures. It started pretty cool, but obviously it’s cool now also. We just made some adjustments to keep up with the track changing and that’s all that we needed to do tonight. We didn’t need to go whole sail on this baby, but it was fast. I can’t thank Rick Ren (general manager), Eric Phillips (crew chief) and all the guys that do such a great job at the shop. They’ve done a nice job preparing some fast race trucks and coming to the race track prepared."

Results

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