He started the race from the rear of the field twice and still managed to win the Lucas Oil 225 Saturday night at Chicagoland Speedway.
Kyle Busch passed 61 trucks throughout the race after having to start the race in the 32nd spot and charging to the front. A speeding penalty after the competition caution on lap 32 sent Busch back to the end of field but he was back up battling for the lead within 20 laps.
The racing surface, although one of the roughest on the schedule, provided many grooves for the drivers to find their way around the 1.5 mile track. At times there were drivers fanning out four wide for position.
Only two cautions were called for accidents: Norm Benning hit the outside wall on lap 63 while Todd Shafer attempted to slow to enter the pits but had too much speed and slid off the asphalt and into the grass on lap 113. One other caution was called and that was a competition caution on lap 32.
Last year’s champion, Matt Crafton, finished the race right behind Busch but he doesn’t trail any drivers in the points. He assumed the points lead from Johnny Sauter after Sauter experienced a pit road speeding penalty and couldn’t recover from the deficit. He finished 14th. Sauter was the pole sitter for the race and did lead 24 laps.
Ryan Blaney led six laps on the night, but had engine trouble. He kept losing time on the leader and reported to his team that he had a cylinder going down. He ended up 12th. Blaney retained his third place spot in the championship standings.
Austin Dillon stepped into the No. 20 for NTS Motorsports and ended in the third position. He had a strong showing but couldn’t hold off Busch or Crafton in the closing laps. He led a total of 28 laps.
Tyler Reddick kept a top-four running spot to end the race. He was third when a caution came out for Shafer’s incident and he was able to keep in the top four in the closing laps. The driver has a partial schedule with Team BKR and has had good finishes in the No. 19 in his races this season.
The top ten: Kyle Busch, Matt Crafton, Austin Dillon, Tyler Reddick, Jeb Burton, Darrell Wallace Jr., Ben Kennedy, Joey Coulter, Joe Nemecheck, and Brian Silas.
The next race will be the UNOH 175 on Saturday, Sept. 20 at 1 p.m. ET at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
