NEWTON, Iowa – Kyle Busch is now a better bet than the Nationwide Series field.
Busch raced to his sixth victory in his last seven Nationwide starts and ninth in 17 events this season Saturday night, leading 209 of 250 laps in a dominating run at Iowa Speedway.
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Busch moved a victory away from the series season victory record of 10 he shares with Sam Ard. Busch, a 10-time winner in 2008, is second in series history with 39 victories — nine behind Mark Martin’s record.
Given that Busch has won more than he’s lost so far, that 10-win record seems destined to fall. Martin’s career mark doesn’t seem all that safe either.
“I’m looking forward to it, man. I can’t wait to get to win 11, and hopefully more after that,” Busch said.
Kevin Harvick was second, followed by Jason Leffler. Brad Keselowski, who beat Busch in Iowa last year, finished fourth to stay atop the series points standings by 231 points over Carl Edwards, who was 10th.
Trevor Bayne, who earlier in the day became the first Nationwide driver in 18 years to capture three consecutive poles, finished fifth in front of a standing-room only crowd of nearly 56,000.
Harvick assumed the lead from Busch during a late pit stop by taking just two tires while Busch grabbed four. But that mattered little to Busch, who had the strongest car of the night.
The No. 18 Toyota zipped past Harvick on the outside with 25 laps to go on the 0.875-mile oval, winning without running a single practice lap for the second week in a row.
“Harvick scared us a little bit at the end there, putting on two (tires) and having a good jump on us at the restart there, but we ran him down,” Busch said.
Busch, who started second after flying back from practice for the Sprint Cup race at Pocono, grabbed the lead from Bayne soon after the race went green, marking the 17th straight Nationwide race he’s led at some point.
Bayne gave Busch all he could handle through the first third of the race, briefly jumping ahead and leading a total of 21 laps.
Bayne was the first driver to start out front in three straight races since Jeff Gordon did it in 1992, and at 19 he’s also the youngest to do so.
He has yet to turn all that qualifying speed into a victory, though. He began to fade as the sun went down and his car got tighter, and he was overtaken by Harvick two-thirds of the way in.
“If that thing would have ended in the daylight we probably could have got our first win here,” Bayne said. “Three poles in a row, I mean, I hear that’s not very heard of, so that’s awesome.”
TRUCK SERIES: Tears welled up in Elliott Sadler’s eyes as he drove his No. 2 truck past the white flag. Finally, victory was within reach.
After cutting off Matt Crafton’s pass attempt inside on a restart, the veteran driver pulled away from Kasey Kahne on the final lap of the Camping World Truck Series race at Pocono Raceway for his first NASCAR win in six years.
“You sit at home a lot wondering if you’re ever going to make it back to Victory Lane,” said Sadler, a former Sprint Cup series contender who has struggled in recent years. “This time, I know it’s recent, I know it’s today, but it feels like the biggest win of my career.”
The inaugural trucks race at Pocono was a hit with drivers despite a flurry of late mishaps around the 2.5-mile tri-oval. Kahne finished second, Crafton was third and points leader Todd Bodine wound up 12th.
After a relatively smooth start, things got bumpy in the second half of the 125-mile race, with drivers often going three-wide — or sometimes four-wide — around the turns. The racing down the straightaways was just as exciting to Crafton.
“You get two trucks side-by-side, and you’ll be 10 back, and by the end of the front straightaway, you’ll be on top of them,” Crafton said. “I honestly didn’t know with the race what to expect here.”
No one was happier than Sadler, whose first trucks win made him the 21st driver to get victories in all three NASCAR series.
It was also Sadler’s first spin down Victory Lane since finishing first in a Sprint Cup race at Fontana in 2004, when he contended for the series title.
Sadler has struggled since then, and Pocono may be just the spark that he was looking for to boost his Sprint Cup fortunes.
“It’s hard to put into words what this means to me … to have a tough couple years like we’ve had in the Cup series,” said Sadler, who hasn’t finished better than 17th in a Sprint Cup race this year.
FORMULA ONE: Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel secured the pole position for the Hungarian Grand Prix at Budapest and will be joined by teammate Mark Webber on the front row.
Vettel posted a time of 1 minute, 18.773 seconds in qualifying for today’s race, 0.411 seconds ahead of Webber.
Ferrari drivers Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa will be on the second row. Series leader Lewis Hamilton of McLaren will start fifth.
BEECH RIDGE: Charlie Colby of Newcastle raced to victory in the 40-lap Pro Series main event, and Don Morse, Chris Warming and Kari Thibodeau also won feature races in their respective divisions.
Morse took the checkered flag in the Sport Series race, Warming won the Wildcat feature, and Thibodeau placed first in the Road Runner division.
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