For the third consecutive week, Kyle Busch dominated the NASCAR XFINITY Series, this week at the Phoenix International Raceway.
He went on to lead 175 of the 200 laps en route to his ninth checkered flag in the desert.
Starting in third, it took Busch only five laps to gain the top spot, where he led the first half of the race. Following a mid-race caution, Busch restarted in fifth, and it would only take him seven laps to take back the lead.
Busch’s biggest battle came right before the final pit stop, when Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Erik Jones had caught him and at one point even got underneath of the No. 18. Following the stop, he would not be denied after having over a 3.5-second lead.
During the pit stop both of the top two drivers took just two tires. The two tire change on Jones’ car changed the balance and he got too tight, allowing him to compete with Busch in the final stint of the race.
“With the XFINITY program it has always been good,” Busch said of his triumph at Phoenix. “We didn’t sit on the pole, but our teammates did and they were obviously really fast. They made me run hard all day long. There is nothing left in this car, it is all used up.”
Even though he didn’t race at Daytona, Busch has led 72 percent of the laps through the first four races in the XFINITY Series.
After starting from the pole, Jones was the highest-finishing XFINITY regular. After leading the first five laps, he was within marginal distance of the lead all race long in case Busch were to slip. With three straight top-three finishes, he now sits just 18 points behind point leader Daniel Suarez.
“He was really fast and we had a shot at him there on that long run we got to him and started to work him,” Jones said. “If it would have stayed green I feel like we could have got him, it stayed green but we had to pit. On the pit stop we lost a lot of ground to him and he just ran away.”
Suarez has now finished in the top 10 in each of the first four races to start 2016. The championship leader ran inside of the top three for the majority of the 200 miles as JGR has taken the top three finishing positions the last two weeks.
Justin Allgaier recorded his best finish of 2016 with a fourth and JR Motorsports teammate Chase Elliott rounded out the top 5.
After leading 11 laps around the halfway point, Ty Dillon came home in the sixth position. Cup Series regular Brad Keselowski led nine laps through the final cycle of green flag pit stops, but was passed for the final lead change with 14 laps to go. The No. 22 car finished ninth.
On the final lap two rookies Brennan Poole and Brandon Jones battled it out until turn 4 to see who would come home with a top-10 finish. The No. 48 team edged out the No. 33 car for Poole’s first 10 of 2016.
There were just three cautions for 16 laps, two of which came when cars hit the outside wall, the first coming on the opening lap.
This is the fifth time in Busch’s career that he has won three straight races in the XFINITY Series.
Full results can be found here.
Bad news for the rest of the competition: the series heads to the Auto Club Speedway next weekend, where the driver of the No. 18 has won six times prior, the last coming in 2013.
Dustin joined the Frontstretch team at the beginning of the 2016 season. 2020 marks his sixth full-time season covering the sport that he grew up loving. His dream was to one day be a NASCAR journalist, thus why he attended Ithaca College (Class of 2018) to earn a journalism degree. Since the ripe age of four, he knew he wanted to be a storyteller.