Spire Motorsports #7 Chevrolet Silverado driver, Kyle Busch made records left and right as he challenged for his 66th NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series victory at the iconic Bristol Motor Speedway. Rowdy set another record as he registered his 101st career stage win across all three series at “the Last Great Colosseum” with a clean sweep in both stages of the Bristol Truck race. This has been Kyle Busch’s 171st CTS outing in 21 years.
Busch reaching milestones at Bristol? Nothing new. His stage 1 win was his 100th across all three NASCAR national touring series. #NASCAR #WeatherGuardTruckRace
— Frontstretch (@Frontstretch) March 17, 2024
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Eckes Spills Water over Bristol Plans Belonging to Kyle Busch
The #7 truck qualified at P4 for the Weather Guard Truck Race with a lap time of 15.270 while running speeds as high as 125.658 mph. Busch trailed Christian Eckes (P1), Nick Sanchez (P2), and Taylor Gray (P3) when he started the Weather Guard Truck Race from green.
Rowdy has been phenomenal at the 0.533-mile track with 8 Cup Series wins and 4 Truck Series wins, while also boasting the record for becoming the first NASCAR driver to sweep all three national series races in the same week at Bristol. Not one, but two times.
The 2-time Cup Series champion could not add to his tally with his 5th win at a Truck race in Bristol as McAnally-Hillgeman Racing’s #19 Christian Eckes took home 1st win in the 2024 season after a series of unfortunate runs in the last 3 regular season races. The 23-year-old rising star took the lead from Busch on the final restart as he put in a strong performance by leading the highest laps with 145. Speaking after his Bristol victory, Eckes sounded enthusiastically satisfied as he stated, “We’ve had a lot of issues, and to come back and run really good shows the resilience of this team, so super pumped and ready for the next 19 races.” However, the same excitement couldn’t be seen in Kyle Busch’s face.
Rowdy Did Not Need One More Lap
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When asked what would’ve come to pass, if the race was stretched just one more lap, Rowdy replied emphatically, “We woulda wrecked…” He laughed off the sentiment as he embraced his Bristol heartbreak explaining, “I mean the crazy part about it is we fought loose all through practice, all through qualifying, all through the beginning part of the race.”
The veteran driver went on to dissect Eckes’ stellar performance carefully: “It’s just track position. I let him go early in that run to just go burn his stuff off. Track position at the end, just the aero effects let him be in front of us.”
Nevertheless, following on his Truck duty, Busch now faces the Food City 500 tomorrow night, as he looks set to open Richard Childress Racing’s account for the first time this season in the Cup Series. The last time he won here was in 2022 when the first Bristol race of the season took place on dirt for the second time in its three-year experiment.
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Can Kyle Busch now prepare his chances beforehand as he lays an incredible challenge to the rest of the Cup Series field at approximately 3:30 PM ET tomorrow?
Read More: Christian Eckes Holds of Charging Kyle Busch as He Claims 6th Career Win at Bristol