FORT WORTH, Texas – For the fourth time in the last four NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series races, all-time series wins leader Kyle Busch stole the show.
Busch romped to his 55th career Truck Series victory Friday night, leading 97 of 147 laps in the Vankor 350, but the box score didn’t show the challenges Busch faced along the way.
The 2015 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champion fought off a determined Brett Moffitt early, then held back a frenzied Stewart Friesen over the final 25 laps en route to the winner’s circle.
Though Friesen had several shots at Busch, particularly one coming to 10 laps to go, Busch never faltered and ultimately pulled out to a 1.269-second margin of victory at the checkered flag.
The win kept Busch undefeated in four Truck Series starts so far this season. He becomes the first driver since NASCAR Hall of Famer Ron Hornaday in 2009 to win four or more races in succession.
Hornaday won five races in a row during the summer stretch of his 2009 championship run, and considering Busch’s last start of the 2018 season at Pocono (Pa.) Raceway ended in a victory as well, Busch has won each of his last five appearances in NASCAR’s third-highest series.
Though Friesen was his final adversary, Busch admitted after climbing out in victory lane that it wasn’t the Canadian that he feared the most, even though he swept all three stages to win on Friday night.
“The 24 (Moffitt) was who I was really worried about,” Busch noted. “Something happened with him, and then the 52 (Friesen) was really fast and right there on our tailgate until the last five laps. I don’t know if he just got heated up or what back there. He put up a good fight and about got to me a couple of times there. Fortunately, I was just able to hold out and keep this Cessna Tundra out front.
“We just lacked a little bit of overall speed tonight. We didn’t quite have exactly what we wanted,” added Busch. “We kind of worked on it all in practice and I thought we were pretty good, but those guys were able to keep up with us way too much throughout the night, I thought. It’s a better race that way when they’re able to keep up, but it just means we have to work harder to get ourselves a little faster.”
Friesen was forced to settle for his fifth-career runner-up finish in the Truck Series, the most by a single driver without a victory in the series’ 25-year history.
“We just got too tight,” Friesen lamented. “Man, I just want to win one of these things.”
Five-time Texas winner Johnny Sauter completed the podium, followed by two of his ThorSport Racing teammates, Grant Enfinger and Matt Crafton.
Rookie Tyler Ankrum finished sixth, with Ross Chastain, Tyler Dippel, Brennan Poole and Ben Rhodes filling out the rest of the top 10.
The race featured nine cautions for 47 laps, one yellow shy of the track record of 10, set in 2011 and tied in 2017. However, the number of total caution laps was a Texas Truck Series record.
Leaving Texas, Friesen holds a six-point edge over Enfinger in the regular-season standings.
To view complete race results, advance to the next page.