Ryan Blaney passes Kyle Busch on late restart to win Bristol NNS race

There are few NASCAR drivers better on restarts than Kyle Busch, but Friday night at Bristol Motor Speedway it was 20-year-old Ryan Blaney who got the best of the driver nicknamed “Rowdy” at the end of the race.

On the final restart with six laps to go, Blaney jumped from the bottom lane to clear Busch as the two led the field into Turn 1.

Coming to the white flag, Busch was on Blaney’s bumper but couldn’t catch him as the Team Penske driver took the checkered flag to score his first NASCAR Nationwide Series win of the season and the second of his career.

Busch appeared headed for a dominant win before he slowed to take off on the last restart and the field pushed into his back bumper and lifted his back tires off the ground.

“The leader’s at the biggest disadvantage, I think,” an obviously frustrated Busch said. “Everybody always tries to hold back to the inside and they try to time a run so that when the leader goes, they have momentum on the leader. I’m trying to maintain regular speed and those guys are falling back, falling back. Then I try to fall back and they fall back more. Now you’re underneath pit-road speed, so you try to maintain it and they got a run on your inside. The 22 (Blaney) was five miles per hour faster than me by the first double yellow (restart) stripe. I didn’t go because I didn’t want to go, but everybody behind me is trying to go because they’re following the 22. I’m trying to wait for him so I can go by the single red (restart) mark on the wall.

“It’s stupid,” Busch said of the restart rules. “NASCAR doesn’t police it. So everybody keeps jacking around on it, and one these days I’m going to lock all four (tires) down and stack the whole field up.”

Blaney said he was trying to maintain second and was surprised to get such a good restart on Busch. Watching how Busch had handled the restarts earlier in the race, Blaney expected the driver of the No. 54 Toyota would hang back before taking off for the restart.

“You’re always watching the leader and how he restarts,” Blaney said. “Kyle was obviously the dominant car, and it looked like he was going to be the restarter late in the race, so I was paying attention to him. He does that a lot. He likes to go fairly late. I learned that in the trucks stuff and racing against him in other Nationwide races, that he goes really late. I was kind of prepared for that and my spotter Joey Meier did a great job conferring with that he was going to go late, so that really did prepare me for that a little better.”

Chase Elliott was able to overcome an early brush with the wall to finish the night third, followed by Ty Dillon and Regan Smith.