Courtesy of an error and penalty committed by Jimmie Johnson on Sunday at Dover International Speedway, Kyle Busch raced his way to the checkered flag and captured NASCAR’s Autism Speaks 400 on Sunday.
Coming into the team’s final pit stops, Johnson was hit with a penalty for coming out of pit road too fast. With that, Busch grabbed the lead and did not relinquish it as he captured his second win in as many days at Dover.
Following his victory, Busch remarked jovially that he may have tried to “coax him into speeding a little bit.”
“I don’t know if that happened or not, but I’m going to say it did,” Busch said after the race.
Last week, Rick Hendrick of Hendrick Motorsports stated that he believed Joe Gibbs racing to has passed his team as tops in the spot, and Dover only went along with that theme.
The Joe Gibbs racing team got two big wins from Busch in the Nationwide Series and NASCAR win. Busch almost collected the truck series race too, that would have made it three wins.
“It’s not going to hurt my feelings too bad to go to bed tonight and know that I lost Friday,” Busch said after his NASCAR win. “I’m going to think more about today.”
Johnson and Busch dueled throughout the majority of the day, with Johnson going over the 35 mph speed limit in his final stop.
“I just had too much forward bite leaving the pit box and got going too fast and got busted,” Johnson said after the race.
Busch was almost as equally disappointed that he and Johnson did not get to race it out in the final laps after battling with each other throughout the duration.
“Unfortunately for those guys, they got busted for speeding and we weren’t able to beat them outright and race them around the end of the race,” Busch stated after his win. “I’m going on a limb to say we could beat them today with or without the penalty.”
Johnson accomplished the same feat that Busch did this year, winning twice in a weekend a Dover. This year however, it was not Johnson’s turn.
“I ran my guts out trying to pass him,” Johnson remarked. “It’s unfortunate we didn’t have a chance there at the end.”
On the day, the total number of laps Johnson led was nearly 100 more than Busch, at 225-131.
Online Sportsbooks had installed Johnson as the betting favorite prior to the race, with Busch right behind in the line of favorites.