Kyle Busch withstood two late challenges for the lead from Todd Bodine, and hung on to win the NASCAR Camping World truck series race at Chicagoland Speedway in overtime Friday night.
It was Busch's second straight truck win at Chicagoland, his fourth series victory of the season and 20th of his career. And it comes in the wake of his remarkable three-race weekend sweep at Bristol.
Busch did a tire-smoking victory burnout on the frontstretch, with his crew warning him on the radio to take it easy on the engine.
Bodine finished second, followed by Ron Hornaday Jr., Johnny Sauter and Justin Lofton.
After watching their driver dominate most of the race, Busch's team decided to change all four tires instead of two during pit stops on a late-race caution flag, and it paid off. Despite losing a few spots on the track, Busch only needed two laps to jump back into the lead.
Bodine then caught up to Busch with 15 laps to go and stuck close to his rear bumper. Bodine briefly surged ahead by a nose with seven laps to go, but Busch managed to hang onto the lead and pulled away in the closing laps of regulation.
Timothy Peters then appeared to blow an engine with three laps to go, sending the race into NASCAR's version of overtime and setting up another showdown between Busch and Bodine.
Busch surged ahead on the restart, then pulled away.
It's an off weekend for the Sprint Cup series, but Busch certainly stayed busy. He was coming off a remarkable weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway, sweeping the track's truck, Nationwide and Sprint Cup races.
Busch has shown similar versatility at Chicagoland — he just spread it out over a few years. Busch won the truck race at Chicagoland last year. He also has a Sprint Cup and two Nationwide victories at the track.
Busch had dominated most of Friday's race and was leading comfortably when Austin Dillon tangled with James Buescher with 26 laps to, bringing out a caution.
Busch, Bodine and the rest of the leaders came to pit road, with the crews of Busch and Bodine both deciding to change four tires while others changed only two. Bodine came out ahead of Busch after a faster pit stop.
Ron Hornaday led the field to a restart, but Busch immediately rocketed into third place and only needed a couple of laps to retake the lead, diving to the very bottom of the track to make the pass.
Earlier, Bodine scraped the wall on lap 53, but it didn't appear to cause serious damage and he continued to run with the leaders.
Copyright 2010 AP News
