KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Kyle Busch sailed away from Kevin Harvick after a late wreck collected several leaders Saturday night and won a Sprint Cup race at Kansas Speedway after years of misfortunes.

Busch won for the third time this season, and only needs to win at Charlotte and Pocono to knock off every track in the series. Twice, he had crashed out of the Chase race at Kansas, and he had failed to finish four times on the vexing 11/2-mile tri-oval.

All of which made his bow along the front straightaway feel so much better.

“There’s been a lot of rough days at Kansas,” he said, “that’s for sure.”

Harvick was second after making major changes to his car following a poor qualifying effort. Kurt Busch was third, Matt Kenseth finished fourth and Ryan Blaney wound up fifth.

“You know, it’s our best finish of the year. That’s the bright side,” said Kenseth, who was alongside Busch on the final restart with 19 laps left. “I thought we were as good as (Busch) if we had position, but it was tough restarting on that bottom.”

Martin Truex Jr. looked like he’d be the one to finally get the victory that has eluded him at Kansas, drawing away for big leads on every restart.

He had a nice lead entering the final round of scheduled stops with 54 laps left, but radioed his team that he had a loose wheel after leaving his stall.

“I couldn’t believe it,” he said. “Went around 1 and 2 and was like, ‘Damn, the wheel is loose.’ I kept telling myself maybe it’s not. … Frustrating, but that’s how it goes.”


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