-Kyle Busch won Sunday’s Can-Am 500 to secure his spot as a title contender at Homestead. There was trouble throughout the race for many of the fastest cars, allowing Busch to gain track position late in the race and take the win. It was Busch’s eighth win of the season, which tied him with Kevin Harvick for the highest number of wins this season. It was also Busch’s second win of the playoffs. “What a day! What a race!” Busch said. “It’s an awesome team and awesome group of guys. Can’t say enough about everybody at Joe Gibbs Racing—all the men and women there that work so hard to prepare such great race cars that I get to drive” (courtesy of nascar.com). Busch also spoke about how the momentum of this win can help him at Homestead. “I’d like to think it gives us a lot, but I don’t know–talk is cheap,” Busch said. “We’ve got to be able to go out there and perform and just do what we need to do. Being able to do what we did here today was certainly beneficial. I didn’t think we were the best car, but we survived, and we did what we needed to do today. It’s just about getting to next week, and once we were locked in, it was ‘All bets are off, and it’s time to go’” (courtesy of nascar.com). Busch was challenged late by Brad Keselowski, but a mistake in the closing laps by Keselowski pretty much sealed it up for Busch.

Chase Elliott, Kurt Busch, and Clint Bowyer were all eliminated from the playoffs after being involved in crashes, and Aric Almirola also was eliminated because he had to win but finished fourth. Elliott and Busch were both involved in a crash on lap 269 out of 312 that Denny Hamlin caused by running Busch into the outside wall that ended his day. Busch had a setback earlier in the race; he beat the pace car to pit road, which resulted in a one-lap penalty. Kevin Harvick, who was able to transfer in the final spot after finishing fifth, didn’t have the prettiest day, as he lost a tire when he was leading late in stage one. “That flat tire, just leading the stage there, coming to the white, and the tire goes flat,” Harvick said of his early issue. “That just put us behind and that was really the turning point in our day, to not have everything go right. I mean, we got ourselves back in contention there, and we’re going in the right direction and wound up just finding a spot at the end to just survive there and get to the finish” (courtesy of nascar.com). Harvick, Kyle Busch, and Joey Logano will be joined by defending champion Martin Truex Jr. as title contenders in Sunday’s Ford EcoBoost 400, which can be seen on NBC at 2:00 CT.

Christopher Bell scored his “walk-off home run” on Saturday’s Xfinity Series race at ISM, winning in what was a must-win situation. He started in the rear after failing inspection multiple times before qualifying, meaning he didn’t get to make a lap in qualifying. For Bell, who’s originally from Norman, Oklahoma, this was his seventh win of the season, which leads the series. “I’ll be honest, after Kansas and Texas, I just kind of accepted that we weren’t going to be able to get there,” Bell said. “I just came over here with a ‘Let’s have fun’ attitude. To start in the back, we didn’t really make our way up front that fast. I kind of got stalled out once I got into the top 15. I knew this thing was really fast, because [on Friday] in practice, it was really good… I’m just thankful for my team. They brought probably the best car we’ve had all year here this weekend. It’s a pleasure to drive ’em, and a race car driver is only as good as his race car. This thing was unbelievably fast” (courtesy of nascar.com). Bell was involved in first-lap crashes at both Kansas and Texas. The crash at Kansas took him out of the race, but he was able to continue at Texas before being involved in a crash later in the race. Daniel Hemric, Cole Custer, and Tyler Reddick will join Bell as championship contenders in Saturday’s Ford EcoBoost 300, which can be seen on NBCSN at 2:30 CT.

Brett Moffitt won Friday’s Lucas Oil 150 at ISM Raceway to punch his ticket as a championship contender at Homestead. Moffitt made an aggressive three-wide move to take the lead on a restart with three laps to go. A caution for a Riley Herbst spin set up that restart, and Moffitt was able to execute it perfectly. Noah Gragson was the leader when the caution came out, and Grant Enfinger, who was in a must-win situation, was in second. “I wasn’t sure if I wanted a caution to come out or not, but in hindsight I did,” Moffitt said. “Where we were sitting we were locked into Homestead mathematically. When that caution came out, I was kind of nervous. I didn’t know what was going to happen. Then when the 18 [Gragson] took the top [lane for the restart], I really didn’t know what the hell was going to happen. I was just hoping the 98 [Enfinger] got rolling to where he didn’t stack up the inside, and fortunately he got a good restart, and I dove down to the apron. Our truck was really good running the actual apron through [turns] 1 and 2 all night long. I made a lot of passes there. I stuck it down there and went for it and was able to clear off [turn] 2 and drive away” (courtesy of nascar.com). Moffitt was very pleased with his truck, as his team used a Toyota engine instead of the spec NT-1 engine. “It’s Joe Gibbs 299th engine win with Mark Cronquist,” Moffitt said. “They put our backs against the wall [with the rule change], but the [expletive] won again” (courtesy of nascar.com).

Sources:
Spencer, Reid. “Kyle Busch Wins at Phoenix as Championship 4 Is Set.” Official Site Of NASCAR, NASCAR.com, 12 Nov. 2018, www.nascar.com/news-media/2018/11/11/kyle-busch-pulls-away-late-win-phoenix-championship-4-set/.

Spencer, Reid. “Christopher Bell Rallies for Phoenix Win, Championship Bid.” Official Site Of NASCAR, NASCAR.com, 11 Nov. 2018, www.nascar.com/news-media/2018/11/10/results-xfinity-series-playoffs-ism-raceway-phoenix-whelen-200-recap/.

Spencer, Reid. “Phoenix Truck Results: Moffitt Wins on Final Restart.” Official Site Of NASCAR, NASCAR.com, 10 Nov. 2018, www.nascar.com/news-media/2018/11/09/results-phoenix-camping-world-truck-series-ism-raceway-playoffs-brett-moffitt/.

Written on November 16th, 2018