Kyle Busch dominates Friday night

Friday, Oct. 16, 2009

A healthy Kyle Busch is also a happy Kyle Busch.

And this week that meant a victorious Kyle Busch.

Less than a week after the flu forced Busch to exit his cars early in the Nationwide and Sprint Cup races at Fontana, Calif., the driver returned to form with a dominating performance Friday night at Lowe’s Motor Speedway.

The Dollar General 300 win was the seventh of the season for Busch, the Nationwide points leader, and 28th of his career. It was also his fifth at Charlotte, including three of the past four races at the track.

“It’s been like a holding pattern. This thing was on a rail tonight. It was a great race car,” said Busch, who led 137 of the 200 laps. “I’m sorry to my guys for last week, having to get out (of the car) there.

“I’ve never had to get out of a car before. It was the worst thing ever. I wish we could have gotten to Victory Lane in California.”

Busch said he suffered from cold chills, a bad fever and had trouble sleeping before arriving at California last week and it all got worse through the race weekend. By Monday, Busch said, he had the start of pneumonia.

Other than visiting the doctor on Monday, Busch said he didn’t leave his house until coming to the track on Thursday.

“This is my house on the Nationwide side,” Busch said. “Jimmie (Johnson) can call it his on the Cup side. We’ve got some work to do there.”

Busch lost 90 points of his lead to Carl Edwards last week after his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, Denny Hamlin, wrecked while driving in a relief role. Busch got back 40 of those points – holding a 195-point advantage – with his win Friday night.

The only thing that threatened Busch’s dominance in the race was the weather. But the rain, which was fast approaching, didn’t interfere and Busch crossed the start/finish line after holding off Mike Bliss for the win.

“Kyle just dominated the race; he was really fast. We knew that from practice,” Bliss said. “We knew he was the car to beat – always.”

Dave Blaney finished third, Brian Vickers fourth and Edwards fifth.

Matt Kenseth, who led the first 21 laps, was taken out of contention in a wreck on Lap 69 involving seven cars. Besides Kenseth, it caught up Jason Leffler, Joey Logano and David Ragan.

The wreck also ended Logano’s bid for a third consecutive victory. He had won the past two races, at Kansas at California.

The race was slowed six times by caution for 31 laps. There were 12 lead changes among eight drivers.

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