05/19/06
Twice is Nice for Kyle Busch

Last year Kyle Busch became the youngest winner in NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series history with a victory at Lowe’s Motor Speedway. He had so much fun the first time around he decided to do it all again. Busch was clearly the class of the field in the Craftsman Truck Series’ sixth race of the season. Forced to qualify his backup truck after the primary was destroyed in a crash during Thursday’s test session, a 20th-place qualifying effort did little to hamper Busch’s efforts.

It took the Las Vegas native just 38 laps to swipe the lead from pole winner Mike Skinner and from there on the rest of the field was racing for second. Busch racked up his fourth Truck Series victory and became the first series repeat winner in four events at the 1.5-mile speedway. “It was a great effort for Billy Ballew Motorsports, Ritchie Wauters (crew chief), and all the guys on this team,” said Busch. “I really enjoy running here at the Lowe's Motor Speedway, it is a really neat race track. Tonight we had a great race truck, and it seems like there was nothing that we could do wrong to the truck.”

The déjà vu didn’t end in Victory Lane. For the second consecutive year it was Terry Cook who finished in Busch’s tire tracks. Cook took the runner-up spot from Ted Musgrave with 12 laps to go and then held off Todd Bodine for his first top five finish of the season. “The Ford Power Stroke Diesel by Int’l crew built us a new race truck and we debuted here,” said Cook, who leapt from 10th to fifth in the point standings. “Last year we built a new race truck and debuted it here, and finished second behind Kyle Busch. It’s two years in a row that he’s won and it’s two years in a row that we’ve finished second. Just a great effort by the entire team.”

Bodine came from 26th on the starting grid to finish third and stretched his points lead to 17 over teammate and defending champion Ted Musgrave who finished fourth. “At the end there I was running hard with Terry (Cook),” Bodine explained. “I was a little faster than him and slipped in turns one and two and got up high and lost some ground. With five laps to go I wasn’t going to make it up.”
Ron Hornaday rounded out the top five with his first top 10 finish of the season
The Craftsman Truck Series will get right back to action next weekend at Memphis Motorsports Speedway.