Kyle Busch wins the Kroger 200

Despite an engine regulation change issued this week by NASCAR, which mandated all Toyota teams to run a different tapered spacer restrictor to reduce their horsepower relative to the other manufacturers, Busch was unstoppable in his No.18 Joe Gibbs Racing Camry around the 0.686 short track.

The Sprint Cup Series points leader started from the front row and led from lap one after overtaking polesitter Colin Braun at the start. He then paced the field for 197 of the scheduled 200 laps. Braun got close to the rear bumper of Busch's Toyota a few times on the long runs, but the lead was never really under threat.

On every restart, he easily pulled away from Braun's Roush Fenway Ford, and only David Reutimann and Carl Edwards, who both hit trouble at some point during the night, were able to overtake him while unlapping themselves in the second half of the race.

"Well, I was kind of disappointed because I feel those 15 horsepower cost me the pole," said Busch sarcastically, referring to the reduced horsepower he had during the race after NASCAR's new engine ruling.

"I really want to thank all my competitors out there for the complaining they did because they gave me good traction control tonight, so that was nice. But we'll see how it goes from here at the big tracks."

Busch's win is his sixth in Nationwide this season and 15th including his Sprint Cup and Craftsman Truck successes.

Also, it marks a new record for Joe Gibbs Racing in the Nationwide series, beating the previous benchmark of 13 victories in a single season set by Richard Childress Racing last year.

Behind Busch, polesitter Braun scored his best career result in NASCAR at the wheel of the No.16 Ford with a second place finish after taking a rather conservative approach to his race as he later admitted.

"I felt the whole race that we had a shot at it," Braun said. "Congratulations to Kyle and all those guys, they did a great job there. You know Jack (Roush) has been telling me to race smart, race clean, and get finishes.

"I'm sure if we wouldn't have had these conversations I might have been a little more aggressive tonight. I just wanted to bring this one home and get a good finish for the team tonight."

Veteran Mike Bliss finished an impressive third after an early spin put him way down the order. He sustained damage to the left rear of his car but sill managed to go through the field to get his best result of the season thus far in the No.1 Micosukee Chevrolet.

"I spun out when Carl was oiling but came back through the pack so that was good," said Bliss. "Third place is good. I thought if we would have a better car than that, we might have come back through the field, but we'll take third. That's a good finish for us."

However, making an even more impressive recovery was Carl Edwards, who dropped three laps down on Busch after early problems with an oil leak forced him to pit five times during the night. Once the problem was solved, he managed to unlap himself and eventually finish in 11th place.

"I don't know, it's like anything in this world, you just try as hard as you can and that's what we did tonight," Edwards said. "We had an oil cooler leaking or something but, man, I'd give anything if this thing was a hundred laps longer. I was having fun. Just too bad because I felt that we had the fastest car."

Joey Logano had a quiet day on his sixth Nationwide series start, spending most of the race in the top ten and eventually finishing eighth behind Landon Cassill, while best among the series rookies was Cale Gale who was sixth in Kevin Harvick's No.33 Chevrolet.

Clint Bowyer didn't enjoy one of his best outings of the season, finishing 18th, but he still retains the lead in the driver's championship as his closest points contender, Nationwide series regular Brad Keselowski, finished just one place behind him.

Edwards is third and now only seven points behind the JR Motorsports driver.

Pos  Driver              Make       Laps
 1.  Kyle Busch          Toyota      200
 2.  Colin Braun         Ford        200
 3.  Mike Bliss          Chevrolet   200
 4.  Scott Wimmer        Chevrolet   200
 5.  Josh Wise           Dodge       200
 6.  Cale Gale           Chevrolet   200
 7.  Landon Cassill      Chevrolet   200
 8.  Joey Logano         Toyota      200
 9.  David Ragan         Ford        200
10.  Steve Wallace       Chevrolet   200
11.  Carl Edwards        Ford        200
12.  Marcos Ambrose      Ford        200
13.  David Stremme       Chevrolet   200
14.  Bobby Hamilton Jr   Ford        200
15.  Brian Keselowski    Dodge       200
16.  Jason Leffler       Toyota      200
17.  Mike Wallace        Toyota      200
18.  Clint Bowyer        Chevrolet   200
19.  Brad Keselowski     Chevrolet   200
20.  Shelby Howard       Chevrolet   200
21.  Mark Green          Chevrolet   200
22.  Kenny Wallace       Chevrolet   200
23.  Brad Coleman        Ford        200
24.  Jason Keller        Chevrolet   200
25.  Randy MacDonald     Dodge       199
26.  David Reutimann     Toyota      199
27.  Eric McClure        Chevrolet   197
28.  James Buescher      Toyota      197
29.  Brad Teague         Chevrolet   195
30.  Chase Miller        Dodge       193
31.  Danny Efland        Chevrolet   192
32.  Bryan Clauson       Dodge       164
33.  Travis Kittleson    Chevrolet   149
34.  Kenny Hendrick      Chevrolet   140
35.  Brandon Whitt       Ford        121
36.  Kelly Bires         Ford        119
37.  Morgan Shepherd     Dodge       104
38.  Derrike Cope        Chevrolet    31
39.  Kertus Davis        Chevrolet    28
40.  Brett Rowe          Ford         26
41.  Johnny Chapman      Chevrolet     9
42.  Larry Gunselman     Chevrolet     8
43.  Terry Cook          Chevrolet     4