NASCAR Nationwide Series
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NNS: Kurt Busch Returns To High Ground
On a wild night at Daytona, Kurt Busch makes a return trip to victory lane…
Mike Hembree  |  Posted July 06, 2012   Daytona Beach, FL
Finally, there was a day of redemption for Kurt Busch.

Trying to drive his way back to the top of NASCAR after a year of turmoil, Busch showed the skills that once made him a series champion Friday night as he won a late-race shootout to claim the win in the Subway Jalapeno 250 Nationwide Series race at Daytona International Speedway.

Suspended earlier in the year after an encounter with a reporter, Busch found his future very cloudy. But team owner James Finch decided to stick with him, and Busch put Finch’s underfunded No. 1 Chevrolet in one of the sport’s most coveted victory lanes Friday night.

“I’m a racer,” Busch said. “I don’t know much about anything else.”

He knew how to get to the front and stay there Friday night as the race ended with a green-white-checkered finish, going one lap past its scheduled distance of 100.

Finch’s Phoenix Racing team began a wild and barely-in-control celebration in victory lane, a high time that promised to extend deep into the Daytona night.

Busch, with drafting help from Ford rival Ricky Stenhouse Jr., took control of the lead in the closing two-lap dash to the finish. The Busch-Stenhouse tandem draft was challenged by the second draft of Austin Dillon and Michael Annett.

In the shadow of the checkered flag, as he pressed Stenhouse, Dillon lost control of his car and slid across the finish line sideways, finishing fourth to Busch, Stenhouse and Annett. After sliding, he was hit hard by Kyle Busch.

“I probably should have just wedged it in there and crashed everybody,” Dillon said. “I was smiling that whole last lap.”

A late-race caution for debris gave the race a green-white-checkered finish.

“This is what James Finch is all about,” Busch said. “He loves Daytona. I'm happy we were able to deliver.''

Following Busch in the finish order were Stenhouse, Annett (matching his career high), Dillon and Joey Logano.

Logano’s car failed post-race inspection because it was too low in the front, officials said. Penalties are expected to be announced next week.

Elliott Sadler has a two-point lead in the point standings.

“This is unbelievable passion and heart,” Busch said. “That’s all I can give. It’s all I can do right now. It’s amazing to do what we can as a little team to persevere.”

Later Busch said, “I don’t care about me. Tonight is about Phoenix Racing.”

Stenhouse said he was caught without a pre-planned drafting partner on the last restart and hooked up with Busch because he was in the neighborhood.

“That late restart, we didn’t have many people to work with, and I saw him hung out there in the center and I got a good restart and jumped to the middle and caught up with the 1 (Busch),” he said. “He was fast all night, and I just pushed him to the win. I was hoping I could make a move there, but I saw the 3 (Dillon) and everybody coming, so I kind of tried to duck out and block them and we ended up second.”

The race featured some frantic competition – there were 42 lead changes, a record – as drivers wrestled with a mix of pack drafting and tandem drafting. Drivers paired up in the two-car drafts but also merged into the larger pack of cars.

The race climate changed dramatically with 35 laps to go when a 14-car crash near the front of the lead pack scrambled the order.

The smashup started when Mike Wallace and James Buescher made contact in the middle of a large group of cars. Wallace had just completed a position swap with Kevin Harvick in a tandem draft. Wallace and Buescher lost control of their cars, and much of the following traffic was swept into the melee.

Involved at one level or another in the crash, among others, were Clint Bowyer, Kevin Harvick, Cole Whitt, Brad Keselowski, John Wes Townley, Kurt Busch, Kyle Busch and Casey Roderick.

The crash trimmed the field considerably, and Justin Allgaier, Joey Logano and Danica Patrick led the pack to the green with 28 laps to go.

Five laps later, the caution flew again as Brad Sweet slid off the racing surface after his tandem draft with Stenhouse Jr. resulted in the Sweet car sailing out of control.

On the next restart, Kurt Busch and Stenhouse led the way. Stenhouse produced the next caution a lap later as he tapped Jeffrey Earnhardt from behind, sending Earnhardt into a spin and into the wall in front of a mass of traffic. Patrick was hit in the middle of that traffic, lost control and slammed into the inside wall.

Before leaving the scene for the infield medical center, Earnhardt issued a single-finger salute to Stenhouse.

Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEED.com and has been covering motorsports for 30 years. He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.
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