Kyle Busch came into the 23rd running of the Brickyard 400 as the prohibitive favorite.
Busch left Indianapolis as the repeat brickyard champion after dominating the rest of the field on the way to his victory. He had the most laps led in the race’s history with 149 after the race went in overtime because of cautions.
He became the first driver in NASCAR history to sweep both the XFINITY race at Indianapolis and the Brickyard, along with sitting on the pole for both.
Busch started off the race strong, leading the first 26 laps of the race.
Only two other drivers led a lap.
Teammates Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski both employed aggressive pit strategies at they tried to pit one less time than drivers. They both led portions of the race early on but weren’t able to overtake Busch for the rest of the race.
Busch overcame their strategy and found his way to retake the lead on lap 62 from Logano. Busch led the rest of the race.
Carl Edwards climbed into second place about a third of the way into the race, and stood just a few seconds behind Busch for much of the middle portion of the race.
Edwards nearly overtook Busch on lap 127 after a restart. Martin Truex Jr. also came close after a restart as he jumped up to second. The race went into an overtime because of another caution, but Busch was able to prevail after keeping his restarts clean.
Andrew Hussey
