It was the Busch brothers show Sunday at Bristol Motor Speedway as younger brother Kyle won the Food City 500, while older sibling Kurt finished second.
It was Kyle Busch’s eighth career Cup win at the .533-mile short track, depriving Kurt of his seventh win there. The younger Busch also recorded a series-leading third win in the first eight races of 2019, as well as capturing the 54th win of his Cup career, tying him for 10th on the NASCAR all-time wins list with Hall of Famer Lee Petty.
It looked like it might not be Kyle Busch’s day after being rear-ended by Ricky Stenhouse Jr. on Lap 2. But Busch was able to work his way through the field. The biggest key came during the race’s final caution when Busch stayed out with 20 laps to go and held on to take the checkered flag.
“We’re crazy, we just do what we do to try to win,” Busch told Fox Sports 1. “It’s awesome that we were able to snooker those guys to be able to get our win. I love this place. It was fun to battle my brother there at the end. We didn’t quite get side-by-side racing, but I saw him working the top and I’m like, ‘I better go’ and I was able to make up some ground.
This is the second time the brothers have finished 1-2 in a Cup race (the other time was at Sonoma in 2015).
What’s more, the Busch brothers have combined to win the last four races at BMS, dating back to August 2017.
“That one’s tough, I really wanted to beat (Kyle), I was going to wreck him,” Kurt Busch laughed to FS1. “I was wanting to stay close enough so that when we took the white, I was just going to drive into him in (Turns) 3 and 4. He already won (twice this season) and figured he could give a little love to his brother. Nah.”
It was Kurt Busch’s best finish of the season.
Joey Logano finished third, followed by Ryan Blaney and Denny Hamlin.
MORE: Race Results
STAGE 1 WINNER: Ty Dillon (first stage victory of his Cup career).
STAGE 2 WINNER: Joey Logano.
WHO ELSE HAD A GOOD RACE: Jimmie Johnson finished 10th, earning his second consecutive top-10 finish. … Paul Menard and Ryan Newman both earned their respective first top-10 finishes of the season. … Daniel Suarez earned his third straight top 10 and fourth of the season. … Ryan Blaney led a race-high 158 laps.
WHO HAD A BAD RACE: Things got off to a rough start with a Lap 2 wreck that included Kyle Busch, Aric Almirola (who was knocked out of the race after the impact), Ryan Preece and Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
NOTABLE: Kevin Harvick had a rough start to the day but rallied late to finish 13th. Before the race, his engineer was ejected fafter Harvick’s car failed to pass pre-race inspection three times. Harvick had to start from the back of the field and do a pass through penalty at the start. Then Harvick had to make an unscheduled pit stop due to a loose wheel .
WHAT’S NEXT: Toyota Owners 400 this Saturday night at 7:30 p.m. ET at Richmond Raceway.
