NASCAR Cup Series: Kyle Busch rallies to win 2019 Food City 500

Kyle Busch earned his series-high third victory of the 2019 NASCAR Cup Series season by winning the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Joe Gibbs Racing’s Kyle Busch was involved in a crash right after the 2019 NASCAR Cup Series season’s eighth race, the Food City 500, at Bristol Motor Speedway got underway, a crash that left his #18 Toyota with a decent amount of damage.

But over the course of the 500-lap race around the four-turn, 0.533-mile (0.858-kilometer) high-banked Bristol Motor Speedway oval in Bristol, Tennessee, the 33-year-old Las Vegas, Nevada native rallied back to take the checkered flag at the track for the eighth time in his Cup Series career and the 22nd time in his NASCAR career.

Busch, who started the race in 17th place, led 71 of its 500 laps en route to holding off brother Kurt Busch of Chip Ganassi Racing by 0.722 seconds. Kurt Busch finished in second place in his #1 Chevrolet to tie the best result by a Chevrolet driver so far this season, as Hendrick Motorsports’ Chase Elliott finished in second in the race at Martinsville Speedway two weeks ago.

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Busch ultimately took the lead for the final time after several drivers decided to come into the pits for new tires during the race’s final caution flag period with only a handful of laps to go. Coming into the pits ended up not paying off whatsoever for any of these drivers.

Team Penske teammates Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney were the highest finishing Ford drivers of the race, and they were among the two drivers who came into the pits for new tires during this caution flag period. They finished in third and fourth place in their #22 Ford and #12 Ford, respectively. Team Penske’s Brad Keselowski was issued a late drive-through penalty for committing a restart violation, dropping him out of contention. Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin rounded out the top five by finishing in fifth in his #11 Toyota.

Wood Brothers Racing’s Paul Menard, Stewart-Haas Racing teammates Clint Bowyer and Daniel Suarez, and Roush Fenway Racing’s Ryan Newman gave Ford drivers six of the top nine positions by finishing in sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth place in their #21 Ford, #14 Ford, #41 Ford and #6 Ford, respectively.

Hendrick Motorsports’ Jimmie Johnson rounded out the top 10 by finishing in 10th place in his #48 Chevrolet ahead of Elliott, who started the race from the pole position but endured a challenging race in many respects, in 11th in his #9 Chevrolet.

The race featured a total of 21 lead changes among nine drivers. Aside of Busch, eight drivers led at least one lap of the race. Those drivers were Logano, Blaney, Hamlin, Bowyer, Elliott, Germain Racing’s Ty Dillon, Keselowski and Joe Gibbs Racing’s Erik Jones.

Blaney led more laps than anybody else in the field with 158 laps led, while Logano finished slightly behind him in that category with 146 laps led. Dillon earned his first career stage victory by winning stage one while Logano won stage two.

The race was an attrition-filled race, one that certainly left far more than Busch’s car with a fair bit of damage. In fact, it would be easier to list all of the drivers who were not involved in some kind of incident throughout the race than those who were, simply because there might very well be no one on this list.

The race featured a total of 11 caution flag periods for 77 laps. Nine of these caution flag periods took place as a result of on-track incidents while the usual two took place as a result of the endings of stages one and two. A total of 37 drivers started the race, and 33 of these drivers finished it. Of these 33 drivers, 16 finished the race on the lead lap.

Here are the full race results of the 2019 Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Race Results
1st – Kyle Busch
2nd – Kurt Busch
3rd – Joey Logano
4th – Ryan Blaney
5th – Denny Hamlin
6th – Paul Menard
7th – Clint Bowyer
8th – Daniel Suarez
9th – Ryan Newman
10th – Jimmie Johnson
11th – Chase Elliott
12th – Matt DiBenedetto
13th – Kevin Harvick
14th – Austin Dillon
15th – Ty Dillon
16th – William Byron
17th – Martin Truex Jr.
18th – Brad Keselowski
19th – Kyle Larson
20th – Darrell Wallace Jr.
21st – David Ragan
22nd – Chris Buescher
23rd – Alex Bowman
24th – Erik Jones
25th – Ryan Preece
26th – Landon Cassill
27th – Matt Tifft
28th – Michael McDowell
29th – Ross Chastain
30th – Daniel Hemric
31st – Bayley Currey
32nd – Quin Houff
33rd – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
34th – Corey LaJoie
35th – Timmy Hill
36th – Gray Gaulding
37th – Aric Almirola

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The next race on the 36-race 2019 NASCAR Cup Series schedule is the season’s eighth race, the Toyota Owners 400, is scheduled to take place this Saturday, April 13 at 7:30 p.m. ET. It is set to be broadcast live on Fox from Richmond Raceway in Richmond, Virginia.

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