Camping World Truck Series – Helluva Good! 200 9/19/09

Kyle Busch holds on against all odds to win the Helluva Good! 200 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway!

Questioning whether or not he’d have enough gas to cross the finish line, Busch held off the KHI duo of points leader Ron Hornaday Jr. and Kevin Harvick to score his 5th truck win of the season on his 3rd consecutive start.

Photo Credit: Jason Smith/Getty Images for NASCAR

“They told me we were going to be about five (laps) short,” Busch said. “I was like, ‘You’re kidding me! We just stopped and filled this thing.’ It barely made it. It ran out coming into victory lane there.”

Ron Hornaday Jr. led a race-high 101 laps. Busch made a quick pit stop for a gas only ‘splash and go’ on lap 172 which put him out on the track in front of Hornaday. Hornaday crossed the finish 2nd – .560 seconds after Busch.

With a faster truck, Harvick radioed to Hornaday’s team to tell their driver to move over so Harvick could make the pass to run down Busch. “The communication between the spotter and the crew chief wasn’t relayed to the driver very clear,” Harvick said. “I felt like one of the two trucks should have won the race. I felt like we were a little bit better truck, but you can’t put yourself in position to do something underneath him (Hornaday) that would be detrimental to his championship chase. It’s just some things internally that we probably need to work on there. Second and third today is still a good day, a good day for (Hornaday) in the championship race, but I feel like we didn’t do what we needed to do.”

“It was a good day — until after the race,” Hornday responded. “He (Harvick) got up to me three or four times and I backed off. He ran underneath me. I don’t know if he was getting loose or whatever underneath me. I had older tires. I didn’t have fresher tires. But I’ll take second. … I’m going to talk to him right now. I don’t know what I done wrong.”

Matt Crafton finished 4th followed by Johnny Sauter, Stacy Compton, Brian Scott, polesitter Mike Skinner, Colin Braun and Rick Crawford rounding out the top-10.

For the (unofficial) race results, click here.

There were 3 cautions for 14 laps and 9 lead changes among 7 drivers: M. Skinner 1-16; K. Busch 17-40; K. Harvick 41-43; K. Busch 44-68; R. Hornaday Jr. 69-169; K. Busch 170-172; C. Braun 173; B. Scott 174-176; R. Crawford 177; K. Busch 178-200

Ron Hornaday Jr. leads the point staindings by 217 points over 2nd place, Matt Crafton.