Kyle Busch dominates, wins 60th Truck race in Fr8Auctions 200

Kyle Busch missed out on his sixtieth NASCAR Camping World Truck Series win two weeks ago at Las Vegas, but he got it anyway on Saturday when he led 102 of 130 laps to win the Fr8Auctions 200 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

Busch started the race in second alongside Las Vegas winner and employee John Hunter Nemechek. Brett Moffitt dropped to the rear after an engine change, while Josh Berry did so as a replacement driver for Kris Wright, who missed the race after testing positive for COVID-19.

Matt Crafton took the lead on the opening lap and led three of them before Busch became the leader. Nemechek assumed the spot on lap 29 shortly before the stage conclusion and led Busch to the green-checkered flag. Austin Hill, Stewart Friesen, Ross Chastain, Derek Kraus, Crafton, Zane Smith, Sheldon Creed, and Johnny Sauter closed out the top ten. The lone caution of the segment was for the competition yellow on lap 17.

Nemechek and Busch would trade the lead throughout the second stage before the former once again won ahead of his boss. Friesen, Hill, Chastain, Creed, Smith, Moffitt, Crafton, and Kraus finished behind them.

Busch continued to lead as Stage #3 began. The Chevrolet of Chase Purdy finally broke the Toyota domination when he led four laps beginning on lap 102, but lost the spot to Busch on lap 106. Purdy’s GMS Racing team-mate Raphaël Lessard retired from the race on lap 115 with a transmission failure, being and was one of two DNFs alongside Norm Benning who was flagged for being too slow earlier in the segment.

Facing little opposition, Busch drove off to the win. Toyotas occupied the top four with Hill, Nemechek, and Sauter finishing behind him. It is Busch’s sixth Truck win at Atlanta, while his 102 laps led were the most by a Truck winner at the track. The victory was also the first for crew chief Mardy Lindley, who joined Kyle Busch Motorsports after working for GMS in the ARCA Menards Series East.

“I thought we had a great truck at the start of the race,” Busch said. “We just kept working on it all day. We were loose to start and we got it a lot better there. That final stage, we just took off and it was super fast, super good. […]

“Anytime I’m in my truck, I want to be able to go out there and score the victory. With good competition and good competitors, it’s not easy. With John Hunter coming on board, at Vegas he was super fast and did everything right, no mistakes. We’ll go back and regroup and make sure that #4 truck can stay in front of that #16 truck (Hill) the rest of this year.”

The race was remarkably clean as the competition caution and stage breaks were the lone cautions.

Elsewhere in the field, Berry finished twenty-second in his first Truck race since 2016. Finishing fifth was Creed as the highest-placing truck with sponsorship from Overton’s; owned by Camping World CEO Marcus Lemonis and in a repeat of his mass sponsorship at Las Vegas, Overton’s appeared on ten trucks: Creed, Smith (sixth), Moffitt (ninth), Carson Hocevar (twelfth), Parker Kligerman (fourteenth), Ryan Truex (fifteenth), Jordan Anderson (twenty-fifth), Codie Rohrbaugh (twenty-ninth), Dawson Cram (thirty-first), Ryan Ellis (thirty-forth), and Benning (fortieth). Ellis was running his first NASCAR national series race since 2019, while Reaume Brothers Racing team-mate Akinori Ogata finished thirty-seventh in his first Truck start of the year. Spencer Davis finished twentieth in his first start of 2021, while Bill Lester was thirty-sixth in his first NASCAR race since 2007.

Race results