- From NASCAR.com staff reports
LAS VEGAS — Kyle Busch scorched his way to a dominant victory Saturday afternoon in the NASCAR XFINITY Series’ Boyd Gaming 300 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Busch, the Coors Light Pole Award winner, led all but one of the race’s 200 laps in theJoe Gibbs Racing No. 18 Toyota to post his second win of the season, padding hisXFINITY Series record to 78 career wins. The victory was the Las Vegas native’s first in the series at his home track.
Daniel Suarez finished second to take over the XFINITY Series points lead for the first time in the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 19 Toyota. Rookie Erik Jones recovered from a pair of early pit-road penalties to take third in the No. 20 Toyota, sealing a 1-2-3 sweep up front by Joe Gibbs-owned cars.
Busch said post-race that had concerns about running short of fuel on the final green-flag charge, but still placed .817 of a second over a closing Suarez at the checkered flag.
“Suarez was definitely faster than us when he got clean track,” Busch said. “If roles were reversed, he would have been pulling away from me and I wasn’t going to be able to catch him. All in all, just a great day for us in one, two, three and for me to get a victory here in my home town, check one off the list — that’s pretty awesome.”
Chase Elliott, a former series champ and the winner of the XFINITY season opener at Daytona, finished fourth in the JR Motorsports No. 88 Chevrolet.Richard Childress Racing’s Austin Dillon took fifth place in the No. 2 Chevy.
Jones started second and held his position over the opening green-flag run, but two pit lane speeding penalties placed him in an early deficit. Jones was too fast in three sections on a Lap 54 pit stop. He lost one lap to the front-runners as he served his pass-through penalty, but was clocked as too fast during that trip to pit road as well.
“I wasn’t even close to the blues (lights on the tachometer),” Jones told his crew over the radio. “I never even touched ’em.”
After serving both penalties, Jones rejoined the race in 23rd place, two laps down. He regained one lap with a wave-around in the second caution period and then was the beneficiary of the race’s third yellow flag, returning him to the lead lap.
Elliott Sadler dropped from the lead in the XFINITY Series standings, having his three-point edge over Suarez turn to a three-point gap with an eighth-place finish.
Darrell Wallace Jr., Justin Marks and Cody Ware escaped injury after a heavy crash that brought out a lengthy red flag after 135 laps. Ware’s No. 25 skidded off the Turn 2 wall to a stop, where it was hit hard by Wallace’s Roush Fenway Racing No. 6 Ford. Marks popped the wall, then piled into Wallace’s car on the backstretch.
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