The TruNorth Global 250 at Martinsville Speedway ended up becoming the Kyle Busch Show.
Busch won the first stage, finished third in the second, led 173 total laps, and held off Ben Rhodes on a restart with three to go to win his 201st NASCAR national touring series race, breaking his tie with Richard Petty for the most of all time.
In three NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series starts this year, Busch has gone undefeated. With two more starts on his schedule, one next race in Texas and his last in two months at Charlotte, he seems to be in good shape to go five-in-five.
Brett Moffitt finished third after an eventful day, making plenty of aggressive moves and at one point angering Matt Crafton to the point where the veteran threatened to wreck the defending champion if he got close to him.
Ross Chastain had a strong day, finishing fourth after winning the second stage. Before the race, his Niece Motorsports team had led just four laps in four years of racing in the Truck Series. Chastain increased the number by over 1000 percent, leading 53 laps on the day. Polesitter Stewart Friesen ended up fifth.
Myatt Snider finished sixth and Grant Enfinger seventh. Crafton finished eighth.
Johnny Sauter had a very eventful day, to say the least. He drove all the way to third in the first stage before losing a cylinder. The team got the problem fixed during the stage break but Sauter had to start at the tail end of the lead lap cars.
Sauter drove his way up again before losing a tire on lap , then was denied the free pass from a caution that happened a couple of laps later due to a commitment cone violation. Sauter would get his lap back on a later caution, and ended up finishing ninth.
Cup Series driver Bubba Wallace brought AM Racing home a tenth in his guest stint in their Chevrolet.
There were seven cautions. Gus Dean had an accident entering turn one on lap 63, blowing an engine all the way through turn two before coming to a stop. Dean was able to get out of his Chevrolet and was later cleared and released by the infield medical center, but could not continue and finished last.
On lap 118, the No. 33 of Daniel Sasnett spun out of turn four and brought out a caution.
Later, on lap 190, Sasnett spun again out of turn four and NASCAR also called the caution for debris from Sauter’s tire. Corey Roper spun out in turn two not long after the restart on lap 211, bringing out the caution.
On lap 244, Tyler Dippel was spun out by Spencer Davis out of turn two. Finally, coming to take the white flag, Snider and Todd Gilliland were racing hard out of turn four but Gilliland slammed the wall hard and Reid Wilson was also collected. NASCAR had to call the caution for Wilson’s stalled truck. Gilliland finished 15th.
The next event for the Gander Outdoors Truck Series will take place at Texas Motor Speedway next weekend for the Vankor 350.
About the author
Michael has watched NASCAR for 20 years and regularly covered the sport from 2013-2021, and also formerly covered the SRX series from 2021-2023. He now covers the FIA Formula 1 World Championship, the NASCAR Xfinity Series, and road course events in the NASCAR Cup Series.
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Without watching the race, I KNEW this was going to be the result. Now that I’m a prognosticator, I’m going to play the lotto for millions. Wish me luck.
As an indicator of the high esteem Cup events are held on the Fox network, the truck event was shown on the main network and the Cup event tomorrow is on the lower network. It’s a sign.
I wonder how many times 201 was mentioned during the telecast and subsequent articles? I wonder how many times 202 will be mentioned tomorrow? And then 203? 204………
Every win is brand new record. Go Kyle!