DARLINGTON — Matt Kenseth benefited from Kyle Busch’s misfortune to win Friday night’s Diamond Hill Plywood 200 at Darlington Raceway.
Busch had the dominant car all night, leading 143 of 153 laps.
But the Joe Gibbs Racing driver was forced to pit when his right rear tire went down after he ran over debris during a caution with two laps to go.
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That opened the door for Kenseth, who assumed the lead on the restart and held off Jason Leffler in a green-white-checkered finish for his first Nationwide Series win of the season.
“We did have a good car all night and got a good break there at the end,” Kenseth said. “Kyle was a little better when he was in front. In that last run, I was catching him and thought I could at least put some pressure on him and make him work for it.”
Kenseth never had to worry about that, although it looked like Busch was going to try and stay out despite the flat tire.
Eventually, Busch pulled down pit road to fix the flat and wound up finishing 16th. Busch was visibly upset after the race and left the track without speaking to reporters.
“Very disappointing for sure,” said Busch’s crew chief and Bishopville native Jason Ratcliff. “That’s part of the sport. We’ll regroup and go get them next week.”
This isn’t the first time Busch has dominated a Nationwide race and didn’t win. The Las Vegas native led 156 laps at Bristol in March, but a mistake by his crew on pit road cost him the win.
Busch, who has a series-high three wins, still leads the points by 37 over Carl Edwards, who couldn’t communicate with his team during the race because of a bad radio.
Jason Leffler finished second but didn’t think he could contend for the win.
“I’d like to tell you that we had something for him. We were running for second,” Leffler said. “You never know on a restart and our car was stout. I was running my own race and concentrating on (Kenseth).”
Edwards finished third followed by rookies Erik Darnell and Justin Allgaier.
Kenseth’s victory capped a strong day at Darlington. Earlier, he set a track record to win the pole for tonight’s Southern 500.
“Today couldn’t have gone any better,” Kenseth said. “It’s all about the car and the peo-ple who work on it. And they gave me a good one to work with.”
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