LAS VEGAS – Holding off a hard-charging Johnny Sauter and Brett Moffit in the closing laps of a thrilling NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race, Kyle Busch claimed a milestone victory at his home track and kept alive the possibility of a three-race sweep at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Busch crossed the finish line .437 seconds ahead of Sauter, who outdueled Moffit for the runner-up position. Last week’s winner at Atlanta, Moffitt held the lead until contact of his No. 16 Toyota with the lapped truck of Michel Disdier gave Busch the opportunity to charge to the outside and pass for the top spot.

Busch maintained the lead the rest of the way, except for two laps under caution for Disdier’s spin off Turn 4 on Lap 119. Busch won for the first time this season, the first time in a truck at Las Vegas and the 50th time in his career, leaving him one win short of the record held by NASCAR Hall of Famer Ron Hornaday Jr.

Busch has now won at LVMS in each of NASCAR’s top three touring series, and he has won a Truck Series race at every active track at which he has competed.

“It means a lot,” said Busch, who will race in the NASCAR Xfinity Series on Saturday and the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series on Sunday. “We’ve had some great runs in the races that we’ve had at Kyle Busch Motorsports. We’ve raced and won all across the country, but I’ve just never been able to get back to Las Vegas to run a race.

“This one’s pretty cool to be able to win in my hometown and finish my list of Truck Series facilities that I’ve raced at and I’ve won at. I couldn’t be prouder to do it with this Cessna Beechcraft Toyota Tundra – just a phenomenal race truck.”

Failure to launch on the restarts cost Sauter a chance to battle for the victory after the final restart on Lap 124 of 134.

“Tonight I was frustrated when I got out of the truck because of the restarts,” Sauter said. “My best one was the last one, so that was good.”

Just not quite good enough for the driver of the No. 21 GMS Racing Chevrolet, who felt he could have caught the race winner given five or six more laps.

Sauter, however, was no more frustrated than Moffitt, whose issue wasn’t with Disdier. Moffitt was seething because the lapped truck of Myatt Snider raced him tenaciously after coming off pit road with fresh tires in the late stages of the race.

“When the 13 (Snider) pulled out from the pits a couple laps down and side drafted us for the lead, and it allowed Kyle to close in, I tried to go to the bottom of a lapped car (Disdier) and he turned down into us.

“It’s just frustrating, because when you’re out of the race, you shouldn’t get in the way of the leaders… It’s just a bittersweet race.”

Sauter added to his series lead, outpacing second-place Moffitt by 39 points. Fourth-place finisher Grant Enfinger is 40 points behind in third, one ahead of Noah Gragson, who ran 12th on Friday night.

Stewart Friesen led 31 laps—second only to Busch’s 55—and placed fifth. Gragson and Friesen won the first and second stages of the race, respectively.

WATKINS GLEN, NY – AUGUST 05: Kyle Busch, driver of the #18 NOS Rowdy Toyota, crosses the finish line to win the NASCAR XFINITY Series Zippo 200 at The Glen at Watkins Glen International on August 5, 2017 in Watkins Glen, New York. (Photo by Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images)

WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. – With a victory in Saturday’s Zippo 200, Kyle Busch continued to tick items off his bucket list.

Recovering from a wheel-hop and spin in Turn 1 on Lap 17 of 82 along with a penalty for driving through too many pit boxes, Busch claimed his first NASCAR XFINITY Series win at the 2.45-mile Watkins Glen International road course, beating polesitter Joey Logano to the finish line by 1.049 seconds.

“The cars have really been working for me here and it just feels so good to finally win an XFINITY race here,” said Busch, who won last week at Pocono for the first time in a Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series car.

“We’ve been so close so many times. One of my favorite runs here was in a Zippo car (in 2008) and being in the Zippo race today that’s kind of ironic – I guess they sponsor it every year — but being with (owner) Eddie D’Hondt and the Zippo car, I remember we were really, really fast and wish we would’ve got that one.”

In winning for the fourth time this season and the 90th time in his career, Busch grabbed the lead when Brad Keselowski and Logano came to pit road together on Lap 49.

WATKINS GLEN, NY – AUGUST 05: Paul Menard, driver of the #2 Richmond/Menards Chevrolet, leads a pack of cars during the NASCAR XFINITY Series Zippo 200 at The Glen at Watkins Glen International on August 5, 2017 in Watkins Glen, New York. (Photo by Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images)

Busch gained time by staying on the track for five more laps, and by the time he exited pit road on lap 55, he was 1.2 seconds ahead of Keselowski and more than 10 seconds ahead of Logano, who had a lengthy pit stop because of a stuck lug nut.

“Pit road was pretty good for us,” Busch said. “We stayed out long on that one run, and we were able to cycle back up to the lead. It worked two weeks in a row that way. I don’t know how much longer we can do that before they figure it out, but it’s been working for us, so we’ll take it.”

Busch held the top spot the rest of the way, surviving a restart with three laps left after Casey Mears ran out of fuel and stalled on the track to bring out the fifth and final caution of the afternoon. Busch chose the inside lane for the restart to control the preferred line into Turn 1.

The restart brought Logano back near the front of the field, and on the next-to-last lap, he passed Keselowski, his Team Penske teammate, for the runner-up spot.

WATKINS GLEN, NY – AUGUST 05: Brad Keselowski, driver of the #22 REV/Fleetwood Ford, leads a pack of cars during the NASCAR XFINITY Series Zippo 200 at The Glen at Watkins Glen International on August 5, 2017 in Watkins Glen, New York. (Photo by Chris Trotman/Getty Images)

“Dang, I wish it was for the win and not for second,” Logano said of the battle with Keselowski. “I had such a good short run car, just in the wrong position to start that last run. I feel like, if I was second, I could have won the race. I just had a really good short-run car.

“Our long-run speed was off a bit, and that’s when the 18 (Busch) and 22 (Keselowski) would drive by us, and we were a third-place car on the long run, but probably a winning car on the short run. By the time I cleared the 22, the 18 was gone. If we had another four or five laps, (he would have drove off again). I needed a caution.”

Keselowski ran third, followed by Just Allgaier, Paul Menard and Kevin Harvick. Ty Dillon, Erik Jones, Brendan Gaughan and William Byron completed the top 10.

Note: Busch has indicated he plans to “retire” from NASCAR XFINITY Series racing when he reaches 100 victories. That will take at least until 2019. According to rules being implemented for the 2018 season, Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series veterans can compete in only seven XFINITY races during the year. … The victory was the 139th in the series for Joe Gibbs Racing, breaking a tie with Roush Fenway Racing for most in XFINITY history.

The NASCAR Xfinity series blew into the Las Vegas Motor Speedway today for the third race of the season, 20+mph winds came with them making it a challenging day for drivers, teams and fans.

Early on in the Xfinity race it was all Kyle Busch in the NOS Energy #18 Toyota. Before the first green flag pit stops only 13 cars remained on the lead lap. Teammate Eric Jones tried to keep up but early on Kurt just continued to pull away.
Drivers like Ty Dillon, Brad Keselowski and others typically strong runners on the Xfinity series found themselves a lap or more down early in the day.

The first round of pit stops was a disaster for 2016 Xfinity Series rookie #20 Erik Jones who was running near the front. Not only did Erik get a speeding on pit road penalty he also sped on his penalty lap and had to come in once more. The second time Erik had to stop in his pit and ended up 2 laps down. A problem with his tachometer he method which drivers judge pit road speed was speculated as the issue.
The second of only 3 cautions on the day came after a long green flag run due to tire loose on pit road just past lap 73. This allowed teams to pit and also to get the wave around. 17 cars took the wave around, several more than 1 lap down and put the total number of lead lap cars back up to 16.
But as the story has been all day Kyle Busch was just dominating the race. It is almost unbelievable to believe that Kyle has never won a Xfinity race in his previous 11 tries. Kyle’s teammate #20 Erik Jones appeared out of the race when he went down 2 laps down due to 2 pit road infractions. Another driver who had a disaster of the day was Brad Keselowski. Brad had 2 unscheduled pit stops for a vibration and fell 3 laps off the pace. Brad finished 15th3 laps off the pace
The third caution on lap 138 turned into a red when the #25 of rookie Codie Ware spun into the wall in turn 2 and when he came off the wall was collected with a hard hit by # 6 of Bubba Wallace who was then hit by the #42 of Justin Marks. The red took a while as the track crew had to clean up a ton of fluid and debris on the track.
Again with that caution more cars took the wave around including Erik Jones, who is now had worked his way back on the lead lap again. After the caution Daniel Suarez was not letting Kyle Busch get away as he had earlier in the race hung with Kyle on the restart. Erik Jones was working his way back after making up 2 laps settled into 3rd with Gibbs cars running 1,2 and 3 just like they had at the beginning of the race.

As hard as Daniel Suarez tried to catch teammate Kyle Busch it was in vain, the #19 ARRIS Toyota gave it everything he had but to no avail. The last 7 laps young driver from Mexico charged as hard as he could but just ran out of time. Erik Jones wore out his tires so he never got a chance to challenge for the lead. Kyle paid both young driver a compliment when in his post-race comments said both of them will be up on the podium in the near future as race winners.

After going without an Xfinity win at his home track Kyle Busch led 199 out of 200 laps dominating for his first win at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and his 78th Xfinity Series win. #6 Bubba Wallace was the only other driver leading a lap which he did so during green flag pit stops on lap 55. When asked if he was upset he did not lead all 200 laps he said that he had led the most important lap, the last one.

Joe Gibbs racing had a great day with its stables of Toyotas finishing 1,2,3. The top 5 in the race were #18 Kyle Bush in the M & M’s Toyota first, #19 Daniel Suarez in his ARRIS Toyota second, #20 Erik Jones in the Interstate Batteries Toyota third, #88 Chase Elliot in the Tayslayer.com Chevrolet fourth and #2 Austin Dillon in the RTP/Rheem Chevrolet fifth.Notes: Today’s race had 3 cautions, one that became a 19-minute red flag, 31 out of 40 cars running at the end with #74 Mike Harmon the final car running 18 laps down. Erik Jones was the top finishing rookie. #19 Daniel Suarez assumes the point lead by 3 points over Elliot Sadler.
Up next for the Xfinity Series on the west coast swing is Phoenix with the Axalta Faster. Tougher. Brighter. 200 Saturday 12th 2016.