A special rules package that includes restrictor plates couldn’t keep Kyle Busch from handily winning Saturday’s Xfinity Series race at Pocono Raceway.
Busch led 64 of 100 laps to claim his first Xfinity win in four starts this season. It’s his first victory in five starts, snapping his longest winless streak since 2014 (eight starts).
Busch took the lead for good on a Lap 61 restart and won over Chase Elliott, Daniel Hemric, Austin Cindric and Cole Custer.
“Feels good for as good as our car was,” Busch told Fox Sports 1. “This car was on rails this week. It was last week too, but was just able to overcome our deficit that we had this weekend and get back to the front.”
The Joe Gibbs Racing driver led all but two laps in the first stage and won it by a seven-second margin over second place. A speeding penalty in Stage 2 forced Busch to climb through the field to place sixth.
The race saw seven lead changes among six drivers.
The rules package, which debuted last year at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and will be used again next week at Michigan International Speedway, includes a larger spoiler, air ducts and a 2014 style splitter.
STAGE 1 WINNER: Kyle Busch
STAGE 2 WINNER: Paul Menard
MORE: Results, point standings
WHO HAD A GOOD DAY: Cole Custer started on the pole and led 23 laps on the way to earning his third top five of the season ... Elliott Sadler placed sixth. He is the only driver to finish in the top 10 in all 12 races this season ... Ross Chastain placed 11th for his fourth top-15 finish this season ... Daniel Hemric has finished third four times this season ... Austin Cindric’s result is his best in 13 Xfinity starts.
WHO HAD A BAD RACE: Michael Annett finished 35th after getting loose and wrecking with Chase Briscoe on Lap 57. Briscoe finished 38th with his first DNF of the season … Christopher Bell and Justin Allgaier wrecked out on a Lap 61 restart. Allgaier made contact with Dylan Lupton, which turned him into Bell.
POST-RACE INSPECTION: Kyle Busch’s No. 18 Toyota failed post-race heights, an L1 violation. Any penalties will be announced next week.
NOTABLE: Kyle Busch has now won on 26 different tracks in the Xfinity Series and every active track on the circuit ... Elliott Sadler has finished in the top 10 in 13 consecutive races without a win, matching a Xfinity record set by Chase Elliott.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: “I’m not sure it’s the perfect fit, at least for this race track. You’re still lifting a fair amount. It’s a fine line of how well you want your car to drive versus how fast you want it to go. ... I think it will probably be pretty good next week at Michigan because I think you’ll be closer to wide open there easier. You have to be open with a fair amount of confidence because when you get in traffic you can probably split that in half.” - Chase Elliott on how the restrictor plate package worked at Pocono.
WHAT’S NEXT: Lti Printing 250 at Michigan International Speedway at 1:30 p.m. ET on June 9 on Fox.
Todays race looked much like a normal @poconoraceway race instead of what we saw in the All Star race. Making changes to create “better” racing is very difficult. This did provide very valuable information though that can be used for future ideas.
— Jeff Burton (@JeffBurton) June 2, 2018