Kyle Busch won the Auto Club 400 on Sunday, claiming his second victory of the 2019 season. After catching a lucky break late in the race, Busch was able to drive to victory on Saint Patrick’s Day in his green and white #18 Interstate Batteries Camry. The win comes after last week’s winning performance at ISM Speedway in Phoenix. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver notched his 200th victory in all three NASCAR national series, with the win at Auto Club.
While Busch dominated the race for most of the day leading 134 of 200 laps, the win did not come without some adversity. During a pit stop on lap 123, Kyle was too fast exiting pit road. After falling to the back of the field it was amazing to see how quickly Busch made it back to the front. He looked like he was driving in a video game with the way he was passing cars so effortlessly. It almost seemed like he could have had a controller in his hand with some of the passes he made.
On lap 165 Busch got the “Luck of the Irish” as Darrell Wallace Jr., driver of the #43 Chevy, blew a tire. This helped Busch regain the lead of the race he had dominated all day. From then on, he never looked back. Busch claimed victory at the same track he won his first Cup series race at in 2005.
The top 10 included (5) Ford, (3) Toyota, (2) Chevy
(Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images)
Kyle Busch won the race by a margin of 2.354 seconds on Sunday. This shows how dominant his car was and also unveils the flaws in the aero package that NASCAR’s sanctioning body is in charge of. The new aero package for this year is supposed to create exciting and close racing but the race on Sunday was very different from that. After two laps from the restarts, the cars were single file and seconds apart. As a viewer of the sport, no one wants that type of racing. Sunday’s race just makes me more hopeful for the future. 2021 is supposed to bring us the Gen-7 car and I believe most NASCAR fans want that car to save the sport.
In the race, there were no serious on-track accidents. Six cars were involved in accidents, bringing out four caution flags. The #3 machine driven by Austin Dillon blew a tire on lap 57 and Darrell Wallace Jr., in the #43 Chevy, also blew a tire later in the race on lap 165 bringing out the final caution. The biggest accident of the day involved four cars. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. #17, Martin Truex Jr. #19, Erik Jones #20 and Kyle Larson #42 were all gathered up when Stenhouse Jr. got loose in turn two. All the cars were able to rebound from this incident.
The best save of the day came from Hendrick Motorsports driver, William Byron. The #24 was behind Ricky Stenhouse Jr. as his rear end began to slide out from under him. Byron somehow managed to avoid any contact with Stenhouse. The camera’s on the broadcast could not even make out how he missed the back of Stenhouse’s #17 Fastenal Mustang. It was a remarkable save and one of the highlights that occurred during a very lackluster race.
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