Busch doubles his pleasure
Kyle Busch would like to believe he would have defeated Jimmie Johnson even without the four-time champion making a rare pit road mistake.
Busch never will know, and he doesn’t really care.
When Johnson was penalized for speeding on the final pit stop, that was all the opportunity Busch needed to pull away late Sunday and win his second race in two days at Dover (Del.) International Speedway.
Johnson made a quick burst out of the box and accelerated trying to catch a departing Busch coming off pit road. Busch joked that he wanted to “coax him into speeding a little bit.”
“I don’t know if that happened or not, but I’m going to say it did,” Busch said.
Busch’s victory capped a wildly successful weekend for the Joe Gibbs Racing driver.
Busch missed the tripleheader sweep on the one-mile concrete track by just a couple gallons of gas.
He was in position to win the Trucks Series race on Friday but ran out of gas at the end. He easily took the checkered flag in Saturday’s second-tier series race and raced about 800 miles in three days.
“It’s not going to hurt my feelings too bad to go to bed tonight and know that I lost Friday,” Busch said. “I’m going to think more about today.”
On Sunday, Busch swapped the lead with Johnson throughout most of the 400-mile race run in front of thousands of empty seats. He expected the duel to continue until Johnson was clocked at 40.09 mph in a 35 mph zone.
Jeff Burton was second and Matt Kenseth third. Denny Hamlin and David Reutimann rounded out the top five.
Formula One
Mark Webber won the Monaco Grand Prix from the pole to lead Red Bull to a 1-2 finish on the famous street circuit.
The victory put him atop of the Formula One standings.
Teammate Sebastian Vettel overtook Robert Kubica of Renault at the start to finish 0.4 seconds behind Webber. The teammates each have 78 points from six races, but Webber leads thanks to his two race victories.
Red Bull also leads the constructors’ championship.
Kubica held on to third place, while Felipe Massa of Ferrari was fourth ahead of McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton.
NHRA
Larry Dixon roared to his 52nd career Top Fuel win at the Southern Nationals in Commerce, Ga.
Dixon tied Joe Amato for second on the NHRA career list behind Tony Schumacher, winning his fourth event of the season with a pass of 311.49 mph in 3.913 seconds while opponent Brandon Bernstein red-lighted.
Robert Hight won his second straight Funny Car event, beating Ashley Force Hood with a run of 4.185 seconds at 298.01 mph. Force Hood went 297.48 in 4.232 seconds.
Jeg Coughlin beat Rickie Jones for his 50th Pro Stock victory, going 207.21 in 6.659 seconds.
Andrew Hines won Pro Stock Motorcycle with a run of 6.968 seconds at 190.24.