NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
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CUP: Kyle Turns Bristol Into Personal Playground
Kyle Busch smashed the NASCAR record book at Bristol Motor Speedway...
Mike Hembree  |  Posted August 22, 2010   Bristol, TN
Kyle Busch won all three major NASCAR events at Bristol Motor Speedway in August. (Photo: LAT Photographic)
If Kyle Busch is an ass, as Brad Keselowski suggested in the early evening hours Saturday, everybody else who drove a race vehicle at Bristol Motor Speedway this week is the butt of the joke.

No one could beat Busch. In three different vehicles on three different nights and for two different teams, Busch showed the kind of consistent driving excellence that seldom has been seen in NASCAR in a four-day period.

TRUCKS: Kyle Busch Cruises At Bristol
NNS: Busch Batting .500 With Bristol Win
CUP: Kyle Busch Scores Triple At Bristol
PHOTOS > KYLE BUSCH SWEEPS BRISTOL - BRISTOL MOTOR SPEEDWAY

In fact, the results have NEVER been seen in a four-day period.

In winning Saturday night’s Irwin Tools Night Race in a 500-lap trip that was so easy Busch might have been reading a novel at the same time, he completed an unprecedented triple. He won in the Camping World Truck Series Wednesday and in the Nationwide Series Friday, and the win Saturday night pretty much meant he could move his motorhome permanently into BMS victory lane.

LINK> UNOFFICIAL RESULTS: IRWIN TOOLS NIGHT RACE - BRISTOL MOTOR SPEEDWAY
PDF > UNOFFICIAL DRIVER POINTS: IRWIN TOOLS NIGHT RACE - BRISTOL MOTOR SPEEDWAY

Bristol hosted 956 laps of racing over the three nights. Busch led 515 of them and needed a U-Haul to take home the week’s trophies.

“I’m real appreciative of what was able to happen tonight,” Busch said after the race. “It was pretty special, and I feel a lot about how this team has worked so much through the past few weeks to try to get ourselves back on track. Coming to Bristol you could say, ‘Yeah, well, we’re supposed to run well here.’ But, still, it’s cool to be able to put it all together in a complete weekend, with the truck, with the Nationwide car and with the Cup car.”

Team president J.D. Gibbs called it a little beyond cool.

“I think that’s one of those things that will go down in the record books, and years from now I’ll be able to say, ‘Hey, I remember when,’ and that was a lot of fun for us,” he said.

After some of Saturday night’s expected big dogs – guys like Jimmie Johnson and Denny Hamlin – fell by the wayside with various problems, Busch rolled along at the front with near-impunity. He rejected late challenges by David Reutimann and Jamie McMurray to seal the win, his 19th in Sprint Cup competition.

Busch didn’t have much trouble turning back McMurray and Reutimann, his final challengers.

“Reutimann was fast, and he was good,” Busch said. “And I’m not going to say why I beat him because then he’ll fix it, but it has to do with behind the wheel. He wasn’t driving the place right. I’m sorry. If he fixes how to drive this place, he’d be right there with me.”

Busch vaulted to third in the Sprint Cup point standings with the victory, and, after a summer slowdown, might be positioning himself to take a solid shot at his first championship.
Kyle Busch, driver of the #18 Doublemint Toyota, celebrates after winning the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series IRWIN Tools Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway. (Photo: Getty Images)

“It’s a confidence booster,” Busch said of the win. “We still know how to win. We know how to do this.

“You know, I feel like going on into Atlanta, it’s going to be a test for us to see how good we are again at the mile and a half stuff, and then we go to Richmond, another one of our racetracks that I tend to run well at, and Dave gave me an awesome car last time.

“So [I’m] looking forward to that, and then the Chase starts. We hit reset, and we’ve got 10 weeks to show what we’ve got, and, hopefully, it’s enough.”

At Bristol, it was much, much more than enough.

LINK> UNOFFICIAL RESULTS: IRWIN TOOLS NIGHT RACE - BRISTOL MOTOR SPEEDWAY
PDF > UNOFFICIAL DRIVER POINTS: IRWIN TOOLS NIGHT RACE - BRISTOL MOTOR SPEEDWAY
PHOTOS > KYLE BUSCH SWEEPS BRISTOL - BRISTOL MOTOR SPEEDWAY

Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEED.com and has been covering motorsports for 28 years. He has written several books on NASCAR, including "NASCAR: The Definitive History of America's Sport" and "Then Tony Said To Junior: The Best NASCAR Stories Ever Told". He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.

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