Kyle Busch wins NASCAR race at Las Vegas

After winning the first two races of the NASCAR Sprint Cup season, Matt Kenseth rolled ‘snake eyes’ on Sunday at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.  The big winner was local boy Kyle Busch, who took the checkered flag in the Shelby 427 race.  Kenseth, meanwhile, blew his engine six laps into the race finishing dead last.

Busch became the first polesitter to win at Las Vegas, though that doesn’t really convey the impressive bit of driving he did to earn the victory.  He had taken the pole at Friday’s qualifying, edging out his brother Kurt for the honors.  Due to an engine change in his Toyota, however, NASCAR rules required him to start at the back of the field.  In other words, though he *technically* won the race as the polesitter he started 42^nd.   Busch had no option but to drive aggressively, and he gave the crowd a short address indicating that he was going to do just that.  He recalled his ‘look out, here I come’ speech in his post race comments:

"I just said, 'Hey, you know what? We're going to the back so get ready for a show. Here it comes. Even if I got up to 20th and then backed it in, it was still going to be a show."

Busch didn’t have the dominant car, but thanks to some solid pit work and good old fashioned ‘racing luck’ he made it to the front late in the race:

"We just had to battle back. We didn't have the best car out there, but we had a car we kept on working on. I don't know where I get credited for winning this thing, whether it's from the back or from the pole. Either way, we conquered both of them."

He noted that he didn’t realize what it would mean to win a race on his home track until it actually happened:

"I tell you what, this is pretty cool. I didn't know exactly what it would mean, but coming to the checkered flag, there were knots in my stomach. It's bigger than winning the Daytona 500. I said it wasn't going to be, but it is."

Clint Bowyer and Jeff Burton finished second and third respectively.  David Reutimann and Bobby Labonte would finish fourth and fifth.  Kurt Busch would end up in 23^rd place, a lap down from his victorious brother.

NASCAR races at the Atlanta Motor Speedway next weekend and then will take a couple of weeks off before a pair of short track races at Bristol and Martinsville on March 22^nd and 29^th.