Kyle Busch dominated the second half of Sunday’s race at Martinsville Speedway, leading all but twelve of the final 260 laps to notch his first Sprint Cup victory of the season. The defending Cup Series champion swept the weekend on the Virginia half-mile, also winning Saturday’s Camping World Truck Series race. Of the 755 laps of competition in the two races combined, Busch led 475 of them … nearly two-thirds.
He started seventh on Sunday, had the #18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota in front for the first time at Lap 32 and beat runner-up A.J. Allmendinger to the checkered flag by sixty-six one-hundredths of a second. Kyle Larson, Austin Dillon and Brad Keselowski completed the top five. Pole sitter Joey Logano led only the first 21 laps and finished 11th in the forty-car field.
Kevin Harvick entered the weekend atop the point standings and his 17th-place finish was enough to keep him in the #1 spot, though his lead is just four points over Jimmie Johnson – who finished 9th in Sunday’s race. Harvick led twice for 72 laps in the first half of the race. Busch’s victory lifted him from fifth to third in the regular-season standings, a single point behind Johnson and five off the lead.
Defending race winner Denny Hamlin was bidding to become the first driver since the mid-1990’s to win Martinsville’s spring event in consecutive years. But he was sidelined by an accident, failing to complete even half of the race distance and finishing 39th.
Sunday’s race included just 11 lead changes among five drivers: Busch, Logano, Harvick, Paul Menard and Matt Kenseth. Ryan Blaney was the highest-finishing rookie, driving the #21 Wood Brothers Ford to a 19th-place finish.
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– story by John Singler
www.mrn.com
Concord, NC
| Rank | Driver (wins) | Points | Behind | +/- |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kevin Harvick (1) | 220 | LEADER | 0 |
| 2 | Jimmie Johnson (2) | 216 | -4 | 0 |
| 3 | Kyle Busch (1) | 215 | -5 | +2 |
| 4 | Carl Edwards | 206 | -14 | -1 |
| 5 | Joey Logano | 196 | -24 | +1 |
| 6 | Brad Keselowski (1) | 178 | -42 | +3 |
| 7 | Austin Dillon | 176 | -44 | +3 |
| 8 | Kurt Busch | 176 | -44 | -1 |
| 9 | Denny Hamlin (1) | 172 | -48 | -5 |
| 10 | Dale Earnhardt, Jr. | 172 | -48 | -2 |
