Kyle Busch posts Busch Series win
Las Vegas native Kyle Busch led four times and for all but 25 laps and even made overtime look easy Friday at Richmond International Raceway in Richmond, Va., earning his ninth career NASCAR Busch Series victory and second of the season.
Busch, who also started first, never gave up the lead for more than 17 laps and grabbed it for good on the 160th circuit when Matt Kenseth spun to avoid an accident.
Kenseth, winner of 23 series races, had led for 17 laps when Paul Menard spun out right in front of him. Busch darted up and through a clearing in the action and produced the final of six lead changes.
The Emerson Radio 250 race went back to green on lap 201, and Busch had all but ended the suspense by building a lead of nearly 2 1/2 seconds over Carl Edwards until A.J. Allmendinger spun on lap 236.
Busch won by 0.868 seconds. Edwards was second, followed by Ryan Newman, Kenseth and Mike Bliss.
• YATES RETIREMENT — Robert Yates will retire after the season and hand control of his race team to his son.
Doug Yates will own and operate Yates Racing beginning Dec. 1. The team will use the car numbers and owner points from Robert Yates Racing and will field cars for David Gilliland and Travis Kvapil.
The announcement erased the merger announced last month between RYR and the Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing team from the Champ Car Series.
• STREMME SEEKS RIDE — David Stremme is the latest driver on the free-agent market, as his ride with Chip Ganassi Racing appears to be ending amid speculation Indianapolis 500 winner Dario Franchitti will replace him.
Stremme is in his second season driving the No. 40 Dodge, and Ganassi has an option on next season that the car owner has yet to exercise.
• AT&T AGREEMENT REACHED — NASCAR reached an agreement with AT&T that will allow the company to sponsor Jeff Burton’s car through 2008.
Moments after the agreement was reached, Burton’s crew went to work placing the AT&T logos on his No. 31 Chevrolet at Richmond.
“This agreement represents compromise from all sides that ultimately serves the sport well,” NASCAR chairman Brian France said.
The agreement ends months of legal wrangling between AT&T, NASCAR and Sprint Nextel, sponsor of NASCAR’s top series.
• FORMULA ONE — Fernando Alonso and McLaren teammate Lewis Hamilton were fastest in the second practice session for Sunday’s Italian Grand Prix in Monza.
Alonso went around the 3.6-mile circuit in 1 minute, 22.386 seconds, almost a second faster than Hamilton with 1:23.209.
Renault’s Giancarlo Fisichella was third with 1:23.584, followed by BMW Sauber driver Robert Kubica with 1:23.599. Nico Rosberg was fifth for Williams.
• DESERT RACING — Nearly 200 desert racers will challenge the Southern Nevada desert terrain today in the SCORE Terrible’s Primm 300.
With 29 entries from Nevada, the 18 Pro and two Sportsman classes for cars and trucks have been split into two groups to run multiple laps over the 72-mile course that starts and finishes adjacent to the back parking lot at Buffalo Bill’s Resort in Primm.
The slower classes will start at 6 a.m. The faster classes, including the race-record 31 SCORE Trophy Trucks and the 40 unlimited Class 1 cars, will get the green flag at 1 p.m.
Admission to the start-finish area is free.