Kyle Busch Wins American Commercial Lines 200 NASCAR Camping World Truck Saturday At Atlanta Speedway

HAMPTON, Ga. March 7, 2009: Kyle Busch lost third gear, was losing second gear and had fallen back in the field with just a handful laps to go, but he still managed to win Saturday’s American Commercial Lines 200 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

It was his fourth win in five truck races at Atlanta and his second win in three races this season.

“I stayed on the gas wide open,” Busch said. “I don’t think we out-trucked ‘em today, but I think we outran ‘em at the end.”

Busch outran a closing Kevin Harvick and third-place Todd Bodine by skipping a fuel stop during the final caution period with 14 laps left.

But without third gear, Busch quickly dropped back on the restart and had to claw his way back to the front. When Colin Braun hit the wall hard two laps later to bring out the final caution, Busch had made it back up to second but was faced with another restart.

This time, Busch’s truck seemed to fall back even faster, leaving him 8-10 cars deep with just eight laps remaining.

“On that last restart, I stepped on it to go and second (gear) broke as soon as I stepped on it,” Busch said. “I had to put it in fourth – and hope there was a fourth gear – and just lug it through. Fortunately we got going sooner than later and were able to make it back up through there.

“At least it was exciting for the fans; if we’d have had second and third gear we might have pulled away.”

Harvick, in his first Camping World Series truck race at Atlanta, was closing on Busch in the final laps but was fighting a tight truck and a competitor who was running his preferred line. He was also fighting a slow final pit stop, which clearly irked him more than anything else.

“I got tight when we took the white going in to turn two there … and lost a little too much ground going into three,” Harvick said. “Thing was fast, but it doesn’t matter if you can’t do a pit stop.”

Tucker native Shane Sieg finished 23rd in his Phoenix Construction Toyota.