Kyle Busch wins 100th Xfinity race with Tennessee Lottery 250 victory

Kyle Busch has joined Richard Petty and David Pearson in sharing a historic milestone: triple-digit wins in a NASCAR national series. Busch dominated Saturday’s Xfinity Series race at Nashville Superspeedway from the pole, leading 122 of 188 laps en route to his 100th victory in NASCAR’s second tier.

While Busch qualified on the pole, six drivers were sent home: Chad Finchum, Timmy Hill, Jeffrey Earnhardt, Colby Howard, Dillon Bassett, and Gray Gaulding.

Despite Busch’s pole and his eventual win, Austin Cindric would dominate the first stage as he led every lap. Busch finished second followed by Daniel Hemric, Harrison Burton, Justin Allgaier, Brandon Jones, A.J. Allmendinger, Jeb Burton, Josh Berry, and Myatt Snider. However, Snider’s race took a turn when his car lost power and necessitated a trip to the garage for a battery change; by the time he returned, he was 22 laps down.

Echoing a pattern from the previous day’s Camping World Truck Series race, the first two stages saw nearly every lap led by one driver in each. After Cindric did so for Stage #1, Busch did so for the second as he led all but one lap; Joe Gibbs Racing team-mate Hemric led the lone non-Busch lap under caution on lap 75 following Stefan Parsons’ wreck. By the end of the segment, Busch kept Allgaier at bay to win; Hemric, Burton, Michael Annett, Berry, Jones, Cindric, Justin Haley, and Noah Gragson closed out the top ten.

The final stage ramped up in incidents as Busch continued to lead, with the first caution of the segment coming for debris that ended his run on top. Joe Graf Jr. and Jade Buford wrecked on lap 156 to produce another caution, followed by a larger incident involving much of the leaders like Cindric that eliminated him from the race. At the front, Busch traded the lead with Allgaier.

Landon Cassill‘s wreck on lap 183 set up overtime, and Busch held off Allgaier in the two-lap dash to score the win in the Xfinity Series’ first race at Nashville since 2011. Busch won at the track in 2009 en route to the series title.

“I think one day you just hope that you can make it, and then when you make it, you are like, ‘Okay, let’s go win some more races and let’s go win a championship,'” Busch said. “Being around for as long as I’ve been around, it’s a great opportunity in this position and to get this many wins is really, really cool.

“There’s a lot of great people over the years that have gotten me to this point, whether it be Hendrick Motorsports or Joe Gibbs Racing, most of it has obviously come with JGR for as long as I’ve been there, that just makes it all worth while and I wouldn’t say it has all came full circle. It would be nice to keep going, but everybody’s tired of me being here, so we hit the century mark and we will see if we can get 102. I don’t know what the plan is for next year yet.”

In 2017, when he was still at win #89, Busch commented about the possibility of retiring from Xfinity competition once he reaches the 100 barrier. He still has two more races in 2021 that could bolster that total to 102, while his 2022 plans in the series have not been confirmed.

Berry finished fourth in his final scheduled start for JR Motorsports as Sam Mayer takes over the #8 for the rest of the season. Finishing ninth was Truck regular Austin Hill and Hattori Racing Enterprises in their first of six Xfinity races for 2021. Will Rodgers placed fourteenth in his first Xfinity start since 2019.

Race results