Kyle Busch powered past Chase Elliot with two laps remaining on Sunday at Dover International Speedway, giving the driver his fourth win of the Series for the season as the Playoffs field of 16 was reduced to 12 drivers remaining in the hunt.
Busch in the No. 18 Toyota led the race for only 30 laps of the 400, however, prevailed in the Apache Warrior 400 which is the last contest in the three-race Round of 16. This win is his third victory at Dover and overall 42nd career first place finish in NASCAR’s top circuit.
Chase Elliot led the race for 138 laps the most of any driver on the course. He had a superb race, but fell short as his No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet faded in the last few laps down the stretch finishing in second place just .357 behind Busch the winner.
Kyle Larson also had a good run on Sunday as he won Stage 2. However, he lost the lead when a caution flag waved in the final stage and ended up finishing in fifth place when he failed to maintain his speed during the caution period. He also had trouble in the backstretch, as he could not restart his engine after shutting it down in an effort to conserve fuel consumption.
The other well known drivers Jimmie Johnson third, Martin Truex Jr. fourth and Kyle Busch fifth rounded off the top five finishers in the field. While Clint Boyer ended up sixth, Dale Earnhardt Jr. seventh, Daniel Suarez eighth, Jamie McMurray ninth and Brad Keselowski in tenth.
Truex, Larson, Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski have already clinched their spots in the Round of 12 by earning enough points or race wins they accumulated in the three race phase which guarantees them their spots to move forward in the Playoffs. The other drivers moving on to the Round of 12 are Elliott, Johnson, Denny Hamlin, Matt Kenseth, Kevin Harvick, Ryan Blaney, Jamie McMurray and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. will remain in the field.
The four drivers who failed to advance to the next round are Ryan Newman, Austin Dillon, Kurt Busch and Kasey Kahn.
The NASCAR Monster Energy Cup Series will move on to Charlotte Motor Speedway for the Bank of America 500 on Sunday October 8th to open up the Round of 12, the next three race phase. The race will begin at 2:00 pm eastern time. Local fans can take a drive to the speedway or follow all the action on NBCSN, PRN, SiriusXM or Streaming on NBC Sports.
