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Kyle Busch takes race number two at Xfinity Series Food City 300 at Bristol

Rod Mullins

It was single domination on Wednesday during the NCWTS race for Kyle Busch. On Friday night, he doubled up with a win in the Xfinity Series Food City 300 at Bristol Motor Speedway.

kyle busch food cityNow, Busch will look to go for the triple on Saturday with the Bass Pro Shops Night Race for the Monster Energy Nascar Cup Series race. If he pulls it off, it will be nothing new for Rowdy, since he has already pulled off the triple sweep feat before at BMS.

But how Busch won on Friday night was almost identically scripted as the like the Wednesday night’s race; he received a speeding penalty on pit road and was relegated to the back of the pack in 19th on the lead lap.

And like a shark that senses blood in the water, Busch went into attack mode after the penalty at the end of Stage 1 and started picking off his competitors one by one over the course of 58 laps to take Stage 2 and put himself in position for another victory on the World’s Fastest Half Mile.

“At least I didn’t have to come through in the last stage because everybody was pretty fast there tonight in the last stage,” commented Busch, following the race.  “I don’t know if I would have been able to make it all the way back up through there.”

Busch led a race-high 186 of 300 laps in the race enroute to his fifth Xfinity win of the season,  his ninth overall at Bristol and the 91st of his racing career.

Now “Rowdy” goes for the sweep in Saturday’s Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Bass Pro Shops Night Race, a feat he last accomplished back in 2010.

When asked if he thinks he can do it and make it a sweep once again, Busch smiled and replied, “I think we can, yeah. We’ve got a fast car. We just have to make the right adjustments overnight here and get it ready for tomorrow.”

Busch will start 18th off the grid in Saturday night’s race.

Daniel Suarez, Busch’s Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, finished in second place, 1.181 seconds behind Busch with Xfinity series points leader Elliott Sadler finishing third and clinching a playoff spot.  Ty Dillon and Justin Allgaier rounded out the top five.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished 13th, one lap down, in his first Xfinity race since a win at Richmond in April of 2016. Earnhardt was treated after the race for dehydration and hand cramps in the infield care center with fluids.

The Xfinity series travels to Road America, on August 27 to take on the 4.048-mile road course in Elkhart Lake, Wis.

By Rod Mullins/Augusta Free Press

Rod Mullins

Rod Mullins

Rod Mullins covers NASCAR for AFP, and co-hosts the mid-week “Street Knowledge” focusing on NASCAR with AFP editor Chris Graham. A graduate of UVA-Wise, Rod began his career in journalism as a reporter for The Cumberland Times, later became the program director/news director/on-air morning show host for WNVA in Norton, Va., and in the early 1990s served as the sports information director at UVA-Wise and was the radio “Voice of the Highland Cavaliers” for football and basketball for seven seasons. In 1995, Rod transitioned to public education, where he has worked as a high school English, literature, and creative writing teacher and now serves as a school program coordinator in addition to serving as a mentor for the robotics team.