Event statistics following the ninth race of the 2018 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season, the Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond International Raceway in Virginia.
Kyle Busch recorded his third consecutive victory, becoming the second driver in nine races this season with a three-race winning streak. It marked the first time since 2015 that two drivers had three-race winning streaks in the same season. Busch outpaced Chase Elliott by 0.511 seconds for his 46th career Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series victory.
Toyota Owners 400
Richmond International Raceway – Richmond, Virginia
- Winner (starting position): Kyle Busch (32nd)
- Top Five: Kyle Busch, Chase Elliott, Denny Hamlin, Joey Logano, Kevin Harvick
- Full Results: Kyle Busch, Chase Elliott, Denny Hamlin, Joey Logano, Kevin Harvick, Jimmie Johnson, Kyle Larson, Brad Keselowski, Clint Bowyer, Daniel Suarez, Kurt Busch, William Byron, Erik Jones, Martin Truex Jr., Austin Dillon, Matt DiBenedetto, Aric Almirola, Alex Bowman, Jamie McMurray, Ty Dillon, Trevor Bayne, Ryan Blaney, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Paul Menard, Darrell Wallace Jr., Chris Buescher, A.J. Allmendinger, Ross Chastain, Kasey Kahne, Cole Whitt, Michael McDowell, Daniel Hemric, David Ragan, Landon Cassill, Gray Gaulding, Harrison Rhodes, Ryan Newman, Reed Sorenson
- Average Speed: 96.215 mph
- Laps Completed: 402
- Race Leaders: 7
- Laps Led: Martin Truex Jr. (121), Kurt Busch (98), Joey Logano (92), Clint Bowyer (45), Kyle Busch (32), Kevin Harvick (8)
- Pole Position: Martin Truex Jr. (123.859 mph; 21.799 mph)
- Hard Charger: Kyle Busch (+31; 32nd to 1st)
- Margin of Victory: .511 seconds
- Car Count: 38
- Cars Entered: 38
- Cars Running at Finish: 36 (of 38; or 95 percent of the field)
- Drivers to Finish on Lead Lap: 23
- Cautions: 6 for 46 laps
- Lead Changes: 16
- Stage Winners: Joey Logano (1), Joey Logano (2)
- Weather at Start of Race: 64 degrees Fahrenheit, clear, winds SW 1 mph
- Weather at End of Race: 54 degrees Fahrenheit, fair, winds SE 3 mph
- Manufacturer Breakdown: Chevrolet (19); Ford (13); Toyota (6)
Notes of Interest – Race/Weekend Recap
- This was the 124th Cup Series race at Richmond and the 300th Cup Series race in the state of Virginia.
- This is Kyle Busch’s third Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series victory of the 2018 season and the 46th of his career. Overall, this is Busch’s 187th victory in NASCAR’s three national series.
- This is Busch’s fifth Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series victory at Richmond, and first since 2012, when he won his final of fourth straight spring races at the track. All five of Busch’s Richmond wins have come in the spring race.
- Busch is now tied for sixth in Cup Series victories at Richmond, his five tied with Dale Earnhardt. Between the Cup series and Xfinity Series, Busch has 11 victories at Richmond.
- Busch is the second driver to win three consecutive races this season, joining Kevin Harvick. The last time two drivers had winning streaks of three or more races in the same season was 2015, when Busch and Joey Logano each won three straight races. In addition to Harvick and Busch, Austin Dillon, Martin Truex Jr. and Clint Bowyer each have one victory this season.
- Busch has won multiple Cup Series races in each of the last four seasons and 10 seasons overall. Of those 10 seasons, nine have included three or more victories.
- This is Busch’s seventh top-three finish, seventh top-five finish and eighth top-10 finish of the season. He leads all three categories, though he’s tied with Joey Logano in terms of top 10s.
- This is Busch’s 14th victory on a track measuring less than one mile, and third in the last four races (won 2017 fall race at Martinsville and 2018 spring race at Bristol).
- This is the furthest back Busch has started and won a race – 32nd. His previous worst starting position en route to victory was 30th, in 2008 at Sonoma Raceway. Only three of Busch’s 46 victories have come from outside the top 20 starting positions.
- Busch is the first driver to win from the 32nd starting position since Denny Hamlin won from 32nd at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in 2012.
- This is the furthest back a driver has started from and won this season. The previous worst starting position was 14th, when Austin Dillon won from their in the Daytona 500.
- This is the worst a driver has started and finished at Richmond. The previous worst was in the 2008 spring race, when Clint Bowyer started 31st en route to victory.
- Busch won the race by .511 seconds over Chase Elliott, with all three of his victories coming by less than a second. This marked the closest margin of victory for a Cup Series race at Richmond since Kevin Harvick bested Clint Bowyer by .343 seconds in the 2013 spring race.
- Busch averaged 96.215 mph, the fifth consecutive Richmond race averaging under 100 mph. The race included six cautions for 46 laps.
- This is Busch’s 42nd victory with Joe Gibbs Racing, which leads all drivers, and 42nd career victory driving a Toyota.
- This is the fewest number of laps Busch has led in his three victories this season. He led 116 laps at Texas and 117 at Bristol before leading 32 laps at Richmond. Overall, Busch has led eight of the nine races this season (all in succession), tied with Denny Hamlin for the most among drivers this year.
- Busch now has an average finish this season of 4.89, which leads all drivers who have competed in every race this season. He has finished no worse than third in the last seven races, after starting the season with finishes of 25th and seventh.
- The race’s six cautions were the fewest since six cautions in the 2015 fall race.
- This is Joe Gibbs Racing’s third victory of 2018, all with Kyle Busch.
- This is Toyota’s 11th Cup Series victory at Richmond, and fourth in the last six races at the track.
- This race marked the third in the last four races at Richmond that has gone into overtime. Prior to the 2016 fall race, only two races had gone into overtime.
- Chase Elliott finished a season-best second, which is his eighth career second-place finish. He was the highest-finishing Chevrolet driver. His father, Bill Elliott, had eight second-place finishes before winning his first Cup Series race.
- Elliott has finished in the top five in 24 of his 86 races (27.9 percent) and has 42 top 10s (48.8 percent).
- Virginia native Denny Hamlin finished third, matching his season-best finish, which was set in the Daytona 500. It was also Hamlin’s first top-10 finish since finishing sixth at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California.
- Hamlin helped give Joe Gibbs Racing two drivers in the top five for the third time this season.
- Joey Logano finished fourth, giving him his fifth consecutive top-10 finish and eighth in nine races this season. Logano – the top-finishing Ford driver – also completed every lap of a race for the eighth time in nine races, and he’s finished all but one lap this season, completing 3,046 of 3,047 laps in 2018.
- Logano won by stages of the race, his first two stage victories of the 2018 season.
- Kevin Harvick finished fifth, his sixth top-five finish and seventh top 10 of this season. Harvick led eight laps, and has now led 250 Cup Series races in his career (out of 619 races; 40.4 percent of races he’s contested he’s also led).
- Harvick has now finished fifth at Richmond in four of the last five races and five times in the last eight races.
- After ending a 10-race streak without a top-10 finish, Jimmie Johnson earned his third top 10 in the last five races. His sixth-place result Saturday at Richmond was his second consecutive top 10, and is now only six top 10s away from 350 in his career. Johnson now has 14 top 10s in 33 races at Richmond.
- Kyle Larson, the most recent race at Richmond in the 2017 fall race, finished seventh. Larson has five top 10s in nine races in 2018.
- Brad Keselowski was eighth, advancing 20 positions, the second most positions made up from start to finish by a driver Saturday night. Keselowski’s finish ended a streak of two races finishing outside the top 20.
- Clint Bowyer claimed ninth, his fourth consecutive top-10 finish and sixth of the season.
- Daniel Suarez finished 10th, his second top-10 finish of the season and second top 10 at Richmond in three starts.
- Polesitter Martin Truex Jr. finished 14th, his third consecutive finish outside the top 10 after five consecutive finishes in the top five. Truex leads all drivers in poles (four) and races led (eight) this season.
- Truex now has 19 pole positions, and is one pole this season away from matching his season-high. Truex had five poles during the 2016 Cup Series season.
- Matt DiBenedetto is the only driver in Saturday’s race that recorded of tied their season-best finish. DiBenedetto finished 16th, tying his season-best from Texas Motor Speedway.
- A total of 16 drivers improved on their starting position in the race.
- A total of 23 drivers finished on the lead lap, the most in a race this season.
- This is the fifth race out of nine this season in which one driver has not led at least half of the race’s laps.
- A total of 35 cars finished the race.
- The next Cup Series race will be Sunday, April 29, with the GEICO 500 at Talladega Superspeedway in Talladega, Alabama.
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