Kyle Busch Wins the Heluva Good! 200

Kyle Busch won his third straight race in the Camping World Truck Series, during only his fifth race of the Camping World Truck Series, on Saturday during the Heluva Good! 200 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. He didn’t have the fastest running race truck on the track and barely added enough fuel during a quick splash and dash green flag fuel stop on Lap 172, but he still managed to race to a victory. After the quick fuel stop, he was able to get back out on the track ahead of Hornaday, who had a problem with the length of his 5 second pit stop, which put him behind. Hornaday and his team owner, Kevin Harvick, battled through the last few laps for position behind Busch and this might have cost the team the victory.

Kyle Busch wins his third straight truck race

Harvick after the race stated that Hornaday’s failure to let him move past him during the closing laps prevented him from using his faster truck to catch Kyle Busch. He attributed this to lack of communication between crew chiefs and spotters and you can be sure he’s straightening this out, right now.

Kyle Busch said he wasn’t sure if he would have enough fuel after his brief stop, but decided to put the his foot down and see how far his car would make it. He made it over the line just .560 seconds ahead of Hornaday and ran out of gas as he was driving into Victory Lane to receive his rewards. This gamble allowed Busch to take the win when Hornaday took to long in pit row adding additional fuel.

Hornaday and Harvick were actually the dominant trucks all day long, but when Hornaday failed to respond to Harvick’s desire to get past him, Harvick was done. The heat between team owner and Hornaday appeared to be rising after the race as Harvick stormed over to Hornaday’s truck after the race and apparently had a little talk with his fellow racer and employee.

Hornaday stared after the race that communication problems definitely played a part in his two trucks not winning the race and they’ll work out the problems so this hopefully doesn’t happen again.

This was hardly a bad day for Harvick and his team, they still finished second and third, and he still leads in the series standings by 217 points over Crafton. Crafton for his part was obviously making an effort to race clean after last week’s race at Gateway that saw him getting black flagged. He did finish fourth, but never really challenged for the win.

“Image: Zuma Press”