The NASCAR Xfinity Series came to Chicagoland Speedway to run the Furious 7 300. This race is their eighth to the last race of the season and the Championship is on the line.
Kyle Busch in the No. 54 Monster Energy Toyota won the Coors Light Pole earlier in the day and led the field to green. His teammate Matt Kenseth in the No. 20 Reser’s Main Street Toyota started alongside. Right from the start it was apparent that they were going to battle it out the entire race for the win.
Kyle Busch led the about the first quarter of the race only to give the lead to Kenseth for the second quarter. They continued leading each quarter like they were just playing with the field. They were not playing with each other though Kenseth made a serious charge on the second to last lap and they swapped the lead back and forth until the last lap when Busch held on to win the race. They lead a combined 186 laps of 200 with Busch leading 102 of them.
“We had a very fast Camry here. Can’t say enough about Chris Gayle (crew chief). All the adjustments we made all night long to make the car better and better.” Busch added, “That battle with Matt Kenseth, I don’t know. I thought when I got to him and I got clear of him and I drove away by a second-plus it was over and I can breathe a little bit and I tried to go back up to the top and I was loose up there. I just had to battle through that and try to beat him – he was right there.”
The No. 54 Monster Energy Car has swept both Xfinity races at Chicagoland in 2015 with the June race being won by Erik Jones.
Kyle Busch extends his series winning record to 74 in 305 NASCAR Xfinity Series races. It is his fourth victory and eighth top-10 finish of the year in spite of missing eleven races due to his injury at Daytona. It is also his fourth victory at Chicagoland Speedway.
In the after the race inspection the No. 54 car was found to be too low in all four corners. Penalties, if any, will be given by NASCAR on Tuesday.
Chris Buescher finished seventh and has now increased his lead in the standings by four points to 25 over Ty Dillon. Chase Elliott dropped to third from second in the standings three points behind Dillon.
Darrell Wallace Jr. finished third and is the highest finishing rookie of the race.
Brian Berg Jr. is a NASCAR writer for BehindPitRow.com.
Feature Photo Credit: 312785 Photo by Matt Sullivan/Getty Images