Fort Worth, TX (SportsNetwork.com) - Kyle Busch passed Joey Logano for the lead with 32 laps to go and then kept it following a round of pit stops in the closing laps to win Saturday's O'Reilly Auto Parts Challenge at Texas Motor Speedway and give Joe Gibbs Racing its 100th victory in the Nationwide Series.
Busch is now 2-for-2 in NASCAR's tripleheader weekend at this 1.5-mile racetrack. He won Friday night's Camping World Truck Series event. Busch will start ninth in Sunday's 500-mile Sprint Cup Series race here.
In this 300-mile Nationwide event, Busch led the most laps with 116, while Logano, the pole sitter, ran in front for 59. The two swapped the lead six times between laps 68 and 180.
Busch, who took the lead for the final time with 15 laps left, beat Logano to the finish line by 1.6 seconds.
"This is a special moment for everybody at Joe Gibbs Racing," Busch said of the team's 100th win in NASCAR's second-tier series. "I'm just proud to be a small part of the effort. It's certainly a blast to drive these cars."
If Busch takes the checkered flag for the Sprint Cup event here, it would be the second time in his career that he won all three NASCAR races at a track on the same week. He became the first driver in the history of the sport to accomplish that feat in August 2010 at Bristol.
In May, Busch won the Camping World and Nationwide races at Dover, but he finished 42nd in the Sprint Cup event there after he crashed in the early going.
"I think it would be a real special opportunity (Sunday)," Busch said of his chance to win all three NASCAR races at Texas this weekend. "It's something special, especially at another venue. I would cherish it probably as much as the first, if not as much. You don't get many opportunities to capitalize on all three series."
Busch earned his seventh Nationwide win of the season and his record-extending seventh at Texas. He also claimed his 70th career victory in the series, but 58 of them have been with JGR.
"I'm just proud of Kyle and really proud of our whole Nationwide program," team owner Joe Gibbs said. "We love this series. We got off to a tough start. It took us about five years to win a race, so we really appreciate this."
Ryan Blaney, who is Logano's teammate at Team Penske, finished third, followed by rookie Chase Elliott, the current points leader, and Matt Kenseth, who drives for JGR.
Elliott widened his lead in the championship standings to a season-high 48 points over second-place and JR Motorsports teammate Regan Smith, who finished 11th. If Elliott finishes ahead of Smith in next Saturday's race at Phoenix -- the penultimate event of the season -- he will clinch the series title. The season concludes on Nov. 15 at Homestead.
"We just want to keep digging and try to get better," Elliott said. "Today, we really struggled at the start, but everybody on this team worked hard. My personal opinion, from start to finish, this was probably the best performance we've had as a race team, in working together and getting better throughout the race."
Elliott, the 18-year-old son of 1988 NASCAR Cup Series champion Bill Elliott, scored his first career Nationwide victory in April at Texas.
Brian Scott, Austin Dillon, who made his first Nationwide start this season, and Kevin Harvick finished sixth through eighth, respectively.
Elliott Sadler was credited with a ninth-place finish, even though Clint Bowyer relieved him very early in the race. Elliott was suffering from a stomach virus. Earlier in the day, he received fluids at the track's infield medical care center while Bowyer was substituting for him in qualifying.
Sadler completed just nine laps before he pitted during a caution and handed his No. 11 JGR Toyota over to Bowyer.
"Elliott has done a lot for me in my career and been a good friend over the years," Bowyer said. "I hate to see him sick like that. He was looking pretty rough."
While holding the lead on lap 49, Trevor Bayne crashed hard into the wall after it appeared that he cut his right-rear tire. The back end of his car erupted into flames, as he quickly stopped on track and hopped out of the vehicle unscathed.
"I'm guessing a tire went down, but I didn't notice it," Bayne said. "The way it caught fire, maybe it was a brake line. I'm just not sure. Man, this makes you want to either cry or laugh. I don't know which one to do, but probably not laugh. This was the best Nationwide car I've ever had."
