Kyle Busch captured his 50th career NASCAR Camping World Truck Series win when he took the checkered flag in Friday night’s Stratosphere 200 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Busch scored his first career Truck Series win at his home track. He will look to sweep the tripleheader weekend with victories in Saturday’s Xfinity Series race and Sunday’s Pennzoil 400 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race.
“It was really, really fast. I just felt like we were struggling in the long run,” Busch said. “I was hoping somebody would get behind me we could just get away and duke it out, but that was kind of too short a run there in order to do that.”
Busch was able to hold off a hard-charging Johnny Sauter and Brett Moffit over the final 11 laps after a restart to score the victory.
“It’s pretty awesome,” Busch said. “It’s a great team, everybody at Kyle Busch Motorsports. It was really, really fast. I felt like we were struggling a little bit on the long run but we were making it better at every pit stop.
“It’s all defense. When we had that long run, I felt like if (Moffitt) and I stayed in a good enough line we would just drive away from everybody. The draft kind of helped us get away from everybody.”
Busch led six times for 55 laps. His win came in his first Truck Series Las Vegas start since 2001.
Sauter, Moffitt, Grant Enfinger and Stewart Friesen rounded out the top five.
Moffitt had the lead late and was shooting for his second straight win after his Atlanta Motor Speedway victory last week. But he got caught behind a slower lapped truck to lose the top spot and as it turned out a chance to win.
“I’ve never been so mad finishing third in my life,” Moffitt said.
“We’re coming upon these guys 30 mph faster and they don’t get out of the way. It was uncalled for and someone is going to get hurt.”
Dalton Sargeant, Ben Rhodes, Cody Coughlin, Justin Fontaine and Austin Hill completed the first 10 finishers.
Noah Gragson and Friesen won the night’s first two stages.
The NASCAR Camping World Truck Series returns to action at Martinsville Speedway on Saturday, March 24th.
