NASCAR Sprint Cup star Kyle Busch claims second Rowdy victory at Berlin Raceway

NASCAR Sprint Cup star Kyle Busch claims second Rowdy victory at Berlin Raceway
By Steve Kaminski | The Grand Rapids Press MLive.com

MARNE -- Fans gathered on the Berlin Raceway frontstretch, taking photographs of the burnout circles Kyle Busch had spun earlier Wednesday night.

Consider it Busch’s idea of a business card, and he has left them on tracks all over the country.

Busch, a 26-year old Las Vegas native, returned to the Marne half-mile oval and took top honors in the Rowdy 251 CRA Super Series race before approximately 3,000 fans. It was a replay of last year in which the race named in Busch's honor was rained out on Tuesday, before Busch returned to win on Wednesday.

A year ago, Busch, who is fourth in the NASCAR Sprint Cup point standings, held off teenager Chase Elliott. This time, he escaped from a pair of former Berlin track champions in Johnny Benson Jr. of Grand Rapids and Tim DeVos of Rockford in the final five laps.

"I was trying all I had there at the end of the race, and I felt like I was giving up a little bit of time," said Busch, who headed out of Marne moments after celebrating in Victory Lane to catch a plane for California. He is racing in Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Sonoma.

"Johnny was right there, lurking in the wings and he was going to pounce at any moment. It’s cool to be able to race against guys here like (Benson) and Brian Campbell and Johnny VanDoorn."

Busch, who set fast time, and VanDoorn, the two-time defending CRA champion from Coopersville, had the dominant cars Wednesday. Busch took command on lap 193 and continued to lead until caution waved on lap 238.

There were only five cars on the lead lap at that point, and VanDoorn reclaimed the lead when Busch and the other three lead-lap drivers pitted for fresh tires. Busch drove past VanDoorn on the lap 246 restart, while VanDoorn and Benson eventually tangled, eliminating VanDoorn from the race.

CRA rules call for its races to run the final five laps under green, but Benson could do nothing with Busch once the race resumed. Busch beat out Benson by 0.897 seconds.

Busch’s green-and-black No. 51 template body Late Model was sponsored by Flexco, a Grand Rapids-based company that also supports Busch in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series.

"This is a brand new race car right out of the stable, and she wins the race," said Busch, who collected $15,000 for the victory. "That’s pretty cool.

"It’s fun to come out to Berlin Raceway. It’s a great place to race. We can’t do it without the fan support. We appreciate them, (Berlin operator) Mike (Blackmer) and everybody at Berlin Raceway to help us out. I can’t say enough about my guys from Flexco. These guys do such a great job supporting our Truck program, too."

Benson was making only his second start in the No. 21 Racingawareness.com Late Model. He qualified 16th in the 32-car field, but he patiently worked his way into contention in a race that was slowed nine times for 42 laps for caution. It also was red-flagged twice.

"Kyle was pretty good," said Benson, who also plans to run in Berlin’s Boyne Machine Super Late division Saturday night. "I was hoping to get to second and then maybe have a shot at him. But his car was really good all day long and ours was good enough for about fifth. A couple of guys had some misfortunes, so we lucked out being in a good spot. But I really didn’t have anything there for Kyle.

"We had a little deal there with (VanDoorn) where we got hooked together and spun. I was like, ‘This isn’t going to be good.'"