Recovering from a pit road speeding penalty, “Flirtin” With Disaster”, and with the help of a timely caution, Kyle Busch collected his 200th NASCAR national series victory with a dominating win in Sunday’s Auto Club 400 at Auto Club Speedway.
At the same venue that gave Busch his first Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series victory in 2005, the driver of the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota beat runner-up Joey Logano to the finish line by a comfortable 2.354 seconds to earn his 53rd win in the series and his second straight this season.
With 53 victories in the NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series and 94 in the NASCAR Xfinity Series — both records — Busch reached the milestone a day after a pit-road penalty cost him a chance to hit the magic number in the Xfinity race at the 2-mile track.
But on Sunday, he overcame the pit road speeding penalty incurred during the break after Stage 2 and powered back to the lead with 26 laps left. Now Busch will leave it to others to debate where his 200 victories stack up against the record 200 Cup wins accumulated by NASCAR Hall of Famer Richard Petty.
THE FRATERNAL ORDER OF THE GO FAST
There was only one player riding shotgun with ol Rowdy this week, Karen The Highly Opinionated Southern Belle. The Extremely Opinionated One racked up a very much needed max point race, 60 big ones this week!
THE MOVERS AND THE SHAKERS
Following the Highly Opinionated One in scoring is a trio of trouble! That trio consists of Dan The Numbers Cruncher, Jeremy The Coach, and lastly Leon Your Most Humble Sheriff. All three players were riding copilot with Joey Logano this week. The reward for riding with “Sliced Bread” was that it added a very nifty 51 points to their 1st segment totals.
Meanwhile, Linda B. The Cookie Mom busted off a good number this week in her effort to stave off the nose dive to “The Outhouse”! The Cookie Mom added 45 points to her bucket from “Freaky Fast” Kevin Harvick’s 4th place finish.
Both Linda R. The Lemonade Lefty and Jim, aka Chiefy, racked up a nice score of 40 points, but from different drivers. The Lemonade Lefty was rooting for Aric Almirola, and Chiefy was cheering on “The Delivernator”, Denny Hamlin.
Rounding out the top five scorers this week is Snoopy Dawn, who logged 34 points this week. This week Snoopy was riding with “Rowdy’s” big brother, Kurt Busch.
This biggest mover of the race was the player who chose the race winner, Karen The Highly Opinionated Southern Belle. The Opinionated One, with her 60 points scored, rocketed up the totem pole eight (8) positions to solidly land in 2nd place.
Another player, Jeremy The Coach, catapulted himself a whopping seven (7) spots to now sit in 6th place.
Conversely, Bobby Blue Crush dropped like a hot potato loosing five (5) spots to fall all the way down to 11th place.
Meanwhile, both Linda R. The Lemonade Lefty and Lonna The Quilt Angel moved four (4) slots. Fortunately for The Lemonade Lefty her trajectory was ascending! She climbed up to sit in 5th place. But that result can not be applied to The Quilt Angel, who fell four places to rest now in 9th place.
Rounding out the top five movers is Bernie The Bay Area Bandit. The Bay Area Bandit tripped , stumbled, and fell three (3) positions to sit in 10th place.
STRAIGHT FROM THE CRAPPER
You know that the players all had a very good race when the person who scored the least amount of points totaled 23 points. Well, this week that is exactly when we are looking at. Bobby Blue Crush scored 23 points and for that he receives “The Crappiest Pick of The Week” award!
Spoiler Alert!!!
Kathy The Church Forecloser has been evicted from her comfort zone, “The Outhouse”! Wild Bill The Pretzel Man has now taken over sole position of “The Outhouse” by 10 points this week.
Next week the MENCS and the NGOTS moves back to the East Coast to Martinsville Speedway and the NXS has the week off.
Check out the results of the Auto Club 400.
TIL NEXT TIME, PULL THOSE BELTS TIGHT AND LET’S GO RACIN’!