Kyle Busch completed a 5/5 streak of consecutive victories in NASCAR's top three series at the .533-mile short track of Bristol Motor Speedway after dominating the Jeff Byrd 500 presented by Food City.
Last season, Busch became the first driver to win three national series races at the same track on the same weekend when he claimed victories in the Truck, Nationwide and Cup series at Bristol Motor Speedway but his streak has been arosen to 5/5 after dominating both the Nationwide and Sprint Cup 2011 races in the same track.
Nonetheless, his accomplishement could fairly name him the next Mr. Bristol and undoubtly will rise questions, about how soon another driver will find a way to keep him out of Bristol's Victory Lane or to repeat his streak.
Although, Kyle Busch remained silent during most of the race, he was the first driver coming off pit road after caution on Lap 429 helding off pole-sitter Carl Edwards and current race leader Jimmie Johnson for the following laps. However, after a restart on Lap 464 race winner couldn't have been easily determined as Carl Edwards kept duelling him and Johnson remained on target waiting a mistake that could push him into the lead, but Busch managed to pull away from Edwards taking advantage of the racing traffic on the track.
Edwards finished second for the second time in four races building momentum towards the season, and Johnson finished 3rd proving that the champ is still hot although winless within the first races of the season.
After the latest disapointing performcances, Matt Kenseth managed a good finish in 4rth position and Paul Menard surprised with his 5th position. Kevin Harvick, Kurt Busch, Greg Biffle, Kasey Kahne and Ryan Newman completed the top 10.
Busch stated that winning the race off pit road on the final stop was the decisive factor.
"It was a great pit stop there on that last run down pit road. They gave me a great job there so I get out and have track position I wanted and the lane I wanted to restart in [the outside]. That gave me a little bit easier job, instead of having to pass some of those guys. It would have been interesting, for sure. Carl tried to make it interesting -- he gave me a little bit of a shot there. But I kept it straight somehow this year, didn't have any fallback from 2008 [when Edwards won after moving Busch]"
Concerning his duel with Kyle Busch, Edwards explained that he decided to bide his time, rather than try to bump Busch out of the way as the two raced in close quarters after the final restart. Edwards thought he would have an opportunity -- and perhaps another caution -- in the closing laps.
"I thought we'd be better matched with him. I thought I'd be able to race with him harder for those last 15 to 20 laps, but he took off, and I was a little loose off [the corner], and I just couldn't get back to him to race. But while we were racing for the first couple of laps after the restart, it was a blast. If I would have known that was the only shot I was going to have, I might have raced a little harder.
We were running so hard at that point in the run, I don't know that you could really bump a guy and just move him. You might cause a big wreck. You might wreck yourself. Jimmie was right behind us. I thought maybe it would give him the win, so I figured we'd let it calm down and we'd just race. It ended up that the fastest car at the end won the race. Hindsight is 20/20, but that's the way it panned out."
