Nationwide Win Number Eight For Busch At ORP
by Dan Margetta
7/24/2010

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Clermont, Ind., July 24 - Kyle Busch held off Carl Edwards in a green-white-checkered finish to win the Kroger 200 NASCAR Nationwide Series event Saturday night at O'Reilly Raceway Park in Indianapolis.

Busch led a majority of the race and chose to stay on the speedway to keep track position following a caution flag on lap 161 when Ron Hornaday tangled with the lapped car of J.C. Stout while Edwards chose to pit for fresh tires. Edwards promptly sliced through the field as racing resumed for the closing laps, moving from seventh to second place before the final caution waved on lap 194 for an incident involving Joe Nemechek, setting up the three lap dash for the finish. Busch was able to get a great restart as the green flag flew and it was enough to hold off Edwards who looked to make an inside move through turns three and four but fell short at the finish line.

"I knew I had to get going," Busch stated from victory lane, "They call Ron Hornaday the restart king and I spoke to him tonight. They may have to re-label that one." "It was a good clean race, "Busch continued, "Carl (Edwards) was awesome tonight and I had to do what I had to do to get by. It was fun to come out here to put on a show for all the fans and I enjoyed it."

Edwards struggled in the early going but the call for fresh tires in the end enabled him to make a charge for the victory before having to settle for the second place result.

"I pegged him (Busch) to take off late," Edwards explained, regarding the final restart, "When he saw me lay back a little, he took off and he got me on the start. We've had some good races here but he just beat us today."

Aric Almirola drove the Junior Motorsports #88 car for the first time this season and looked impressive, leading some laps before wheeling it to a third place finish, just ahead of pole-sitter Trevor Bayne, who led the twice for 54 laps, including the first 39, before taking the checkered flag in fourth place. Reed Sorenson rounded out the top five finishers.

After the on-track fireworks between Edwards and Brad Keselowski that ended the race a week ago at Gateway International Raceway which drew penalties for the both drivers from NASCAR, the two found themselves alongside one another early on and throughout the event, raced each other relatively clean, with little to no contact between them.

"I tried to race all the guys hard tonight," Keselowski said after finishing eighth and being asked about his battles with Edwards, "It was good hard short track racing tonight and that's what it is all about."





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