RIDGEWAY, Va. -- Kyle Busch turned in a dominating performance in the STP 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Martinsville Speedway on Sunday to claim his first series win at the track after leading for 352 laps.
"I can't say enough about this whole JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing) team on this side (Sprint Cup)," Busch said. "This M&Ms Camry was awesome in practice yesterday. We had a really good car through practice and Adam (Stevens, crew chief) made some really good adjustments overnight to keep us where we need to be in order to run up front all day, led a lot of laps, probably led the most laps, there, and to win here in Martinsville is pretty cool. Finally get to take a clock (trophy) home."
A.J. Allmendinger passed Busch's Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, Matt Kenseth, on a restart with 11 laps remaining in the 500-lap race to finish second. Kenseth wound up outside the top 10 by the checkered flag, finishing 15th. Kyle Larson, Austin Dillon and Brad Keselowski finished third through fifth, respectively.
"Well, I was hoping for one more spot for a culmination," Allmendinger said. "But, I passed Jimmie Johnson, like, five times at Martinsville; that's pretty cool. I can't thank everybody on this team enough, especially Tad and Jodi Geschickter (car owners). They put a lot of effort into this team. We weren't where we wanted to be about six months ago. We brought in so many people who stepped up to embrace their new roles. I can't thank all our sponsors enough."
Related
For Keselowski, the top-five finish came after overcoming an early-race pit-road speeding penalty.
"We want to win, but I think we ran very competitive, and that's something to be proud of," Keselowski said. "We're not happy; we're proud."
Joey Logano started on the pole and led the first 21 laps before Paul Menard led for a handful of laps. Busch took the lead for the first time on lap 32. As Busch ran up front, Logano slipped back. By lap 70, he was outside the top 20.
A few laps later, he fell off the lead lap. Logano got back on the lead lap, courtesy of a free pass during a lap-137 yellow flag.
"It was frustrating," Logano said. "You want to go out there and win, for sure, and we just missed it. The first run was just absolutely awful to go down a lap from the lead, so we fought to get our car better, which we did, and then we overadjusted and came back and overadjusted on the way back, and then we had a pit-road penalty."
Harvick led a handful of laps a couple times in the first half of the race, taking the lead from Busch on lap 101 to run up front for five laps, then taking the lead again on lap 156. His second stint in the front was more significant, as he led until Kenseth got off pit road first during a lap-221 yellow flag.
Kenseth lost the lead he had gained on pit road when Busch moved back to the front on lap 241. Kenseth got off pit road ahead of Busch to take the lead during multiple cautions in the middle portion of the race, but each time, Busch would get back to the lead quickly after the race restarted.
In all, the yellow flag waved eight times, with the first caution coming on lap five for a tire issue for Dale Earnhardt Jr. The final caution came with 16 laps to go when Jamie McMurray experienced a tire problem, then got clipped by Menard before being able to ease his car to pit road. After being two laps down at one point, Earnhardt recovered to get back on lead lap on 312 and finish 14th.
A third Joe Gibbs Racing driver, Carl Edwards, finished sixth. Placing seventh through 10th were Brian Vickers, Menard, Jimmie Johnson and Ryan Newman, respectively. The remaining JGR driver, Denny Hamlin, was handed a pit-road speeding penalty early, then matters got worse when he hit the wall on lap 221, retiring him from the race.
"It's my first time ever doing it here, so it's a little embarrassing, but, I mean, we were the fastest car those last 30 laps and we got back to the top five and I was making up a lot of my speed on entry," Hamlin said. "As the tires wear, the rears get hotter, less grip, you can't brake at the same amount, and I just -- it was really out of the blue. I didn't ever have a hint of it up until that moment, so a bit of a rookie move on my part. Been around here too much to do something like that, but learning for the fall and I'm really encouraged about how good our car came up through the pack, and I really thought we had a car that could win."
NOTES: Kyle Busch won the NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Martinsville Speedway on Saturday. It was Busch's first win at the track in any of NASCAR's three national series. ... Joey Logano claimed his third consecutive Martinsville pole on Friday after dominating the three-round qualifying session. ... Jimmie Johnson leads active drivers in Martinsville wins with eight. Next is Denny Hamlin with five. ... The starting grid for the STP 500 featured 40 cars, the first full race field since the season-opening Daytona 500 in February. ... Martinsville Speedway is the only track to host NASCAR races in all 68 years of the sanctioning body's existence.
