NASCAR: Kyle Busch falls short of tripleheader sweep at Texas

By Asher Fair | Apr 1, 2019

FORT WORTH, TX - MARCH 29: Kyle Busch, driver of the #18 Interstate Batteries Toyota (Photo by Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images) /

After winning the NASCAR Truck Series and Xfinity Series races at Texas Motor Speedway, Kyle Busch fell short of completing the tripleheader weekend sweep in the Cup Series race at the track.

Kyle Busch opened up the NASCAR race weekend at Texas Motor Speedway by winning Friday night’s Truck Series race, the Vankor 350, at the track in dominant fashion.

The driver of the #51 Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota led 97 of the 147 laps around the four-turn, 1.5-mile (2.414-kilometer) high-banked Texas Motor Speedway oval in Fort Worth, Texas en route to taking the victory.

On Saturday afternoon, Busch was not nearly as dominant in the Xfinity Series race, the My Bariatric Solutions 300, at the track, as he led only 33 of the race’s 200 laps. But most importantly, he led lap 200, putting him in a position to potentially complete the tripleheader weekend sweep in Sunday afternoon’s Cup Series race there.

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In Sunday afternoon’s Cup Series race, the O’Reilly Auto Parts 500, at Texas Motor Speedway, Busch ultimately came up shy of completing what would have been the third tripleheader weekend sweep of his NASCAR career, although he appeared to be well on his way to doing so late in the race.

By lap 276 of the 334-lap race, Busch had led a race-high 66 laps, including each of the last 12, and it did not look like anyone was going to have a chance to catch him. But on lap 276, he got loose coming off of turn two and fell back three positions, relinquishing the lead to teammate Erik Jones in doing so.

As a result, Busch had to make an unscheduled pit stop, and although this ended up being his final pit stop of the race and everyone else also had to make one more pit stop, he was unable to bounce back from this incident and ended up finishing in a season-low 10th place.

Prior to this race, the lowest finish in any of the 14 NASCAR races in which the 33-year-old Las Vegas, Nevada native had competed this year was sixth place, which is where he finished in the Cup Series race at Atlanta Motor Speedway. In his other 13 starts, he had not finished outside of the top three.

The first two tripleheader weekend sweeps of Busch’s NASCAR career both took place at Bristol Motor Speedway. He won the Truck Series, Xfinity Series and Cup Series races at the four-turn, 0.533-mile (0.858-kilometer) high-banked oval in Bristol, Tennessee in August of 2010, and he won each of these three races again in August of 2017.

Earlier this season at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Busch did what he did at Texas Motor Speedway this past weekend and won both the Truck Series and Xfinity Series races at the track, but he failed to win the Cup Series race and thus failed to complete the tripleheader weekend sweep. He finished in third place in the Cup Series race at the four-turn, 1.5-mile (2.414-kilometer) oval in Las Vegas, Nevada.

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Kyle Busch is not set to attempt any more tripleheader weekend sweeps throughout the remainder of the 2019 NASCAR Cup Series season.

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