TALLADEGA, Ala. — Kyle Busch won the Aaron’s 312 under a yellow flag in a wild finish yesterday, taking the NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Talladega Superspeedway when the last of 10 crashes sent Mike Wallace’s car flipping upside down.
Busch captured his fourth win in seven Nationwide races — and 47th of his career — on a day when tandem racing produced a series-record 56 lead changes, 11 cautions, and two red flags to clean up all the debris.
Even Busch got caught up in the mayhem. He spun out in the biggest crash, a 21-car melee just 28 laps from the scheduled finish.
Busch drove his battered Toyota onto pit road and figured he was done for the day. Instead, his crew patched the damage, yanked off the pieces they couldn’t fix, and sent him back onto the track without losing a lap.
He hooked with Joey Logano in a powerful duo, somehow finding a narrow gap to get past leader Trevor Bayne and his pusher, Carl Edwards, on the second attempt at a green-white-checkered finish.
Bayne and Edwards didn’t have a chance at payback. When Wallace’s car got clipped on the last lap going down the backstretch, spinning onto its roof, the yellow came out and Busch’s win was secured.
Wallace’s car wound up back on its wheels and he actually drove it to the finish line of a race that lasted seven laps beyond its scheduled 117.
