Race Rewind: Kyle Busch wins Sunday’s race at Sonoma Raceway

The long road of Kyle Busch’s recovery became a little bit easier.

Busch, who missed the first 11 races of the Sprint Cup season because of a broken right leg and left foot, held off older brother Kurt to win Sunday’s Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway.

To use the win toward competing in the championship Chase, Kyle Busch still needs to be in the top 30 of driver points by the conclusion of the 26th race of the season. He is 37th.

The win is the 30th of Busch’s career, tying him with Kevin Harvick for 23rd on the all-time list.

Clint Bowyer finished third, Harvick was fourth and Joey Logano was fifth.

Turning point

Casey Mears lost a wheel with 10 of 110 laps remaining, setting up a late-race caution that bunched the field. Five drivers elected not to pit, but Busch took four tires and restarted seventh. He took the lead with five laps remaining with a sliding pass of Jimmie Johnson.

Three who mattered

Kyle Busch: The hardest part of Busch’s difficult road to the Chase is over. Now, consistently good finishes are a must.

Clint Bowyer: He came up a little short, but being back in contention for race victories again must be a good feeling for Bowyer.

Martin Truex Jr.: Truex had finished in the top 10 in 14 of the first 15 races, but that impressive run came to an end Sunday. Truex got turned by David Ragan and plowed nose first into the tire barrier. He finished 42nd.

Observations

▪  There are many fans who think Kyle Busch shouldn’t have received a waiver from NASCAR to become Chase eligible despite missing the season’s first 11 races. But it was never going to be an easy task. Busch would have to win at least once and be in the top 30 of driver points. The first hurdle is cleared. The second begins Sunday night at Daytona. It has been quite a show thus far.

▪  It was not a good race for prerace favorites. Former winner Martin Truex Jr. ended up in the tire wall, pole-winner AJ Allmendinger was forced to the garage for repairs and Jeff Gordon’s team elected to change his car’s set-up on pit road during the race because he was having so much difficulty with its handling.

▪  Before the race, NASCAR officials announced that the operation of the pit road control lights will now be run from race control. However, in case there is a conflict between the lights and flag, NASCAR would plan to cut off the lights and defer to the flag.

They said it

“This is awesome, just unbelievable. I can’t say enough about my medical team, everyone who got me back in shape and back on the race track.” – Kyle Busch

Notes

Second top 10 of year: Sam Hornish Jr. has struggled in his first season at Richard Petty Motorsports, but Sunday’s ninth-place finish was his second-best performance of the year and second top-10 finish.

“With how fast we were on Friday I was pretty disappointed with how we qualified and I was disappointed with about half of the race today, but we hung in there and got the best finish that we could out of it,” he said.

Things changed quickly: When Johnson restarted in the lead with seven laps remaining he felt pretty good about his chances. There were four cars between himself and those who pit for fresh tires. Johnson was passed by race winner Kyle Busch with five laps to go.

“After about a lap-and-a-half, I wasn’t feeling so good about things; they were there quickly. But if we came back tomorrow, we’d still run the same strategy,” he said. “We were one caution away from it working out just right.”

N@SCAR

Three tweets from Sunday’s race:

This story was originally published June 28, 2015 at 6:38 PM with the headline "Race Rewind: Kyle Busch wins Sunday’s race at Sonoma Raceway."