Sitting in the bed of a pickup truck, waving to the crowd and talking into an ESPN microphone (all at the same time), Kyle Busch sounded a bit despondent, “It’s been pretty tough,” lamented Busch to a national television audience. “It’s been pretty discouraging. What’s we’ve shown with this number 18 car has been pretty discouraging.”

Busch must have had time for a bit of recollection while multi-tasking in the back of a truck. The 2008 Nationwide Series had started off well for the 22 year-old kid from Never Enough Town (i.e. Vegas), the latest and greatest Joe Gibbs Racing wheelman placing second at both Daytona and California. Then came his hometown race in Las Vegas and that’s when, well, the wheels fell off. A 31st at Vegas (cut tire), 24th at Atlanta broken shock mount), 42nd in Bristol (spin) and an 18th at Nashville (a spin while leading) not only left him eleventh in points, but staring down at the tops of his driving shoes, as well.

And things did look much better in the Lone Star State, as due to rain spitting down on the jet-quick 1.5-mile Texas Motor Speedway quad-oval, NASCAR was forced to cancel qualifying, rudely shoving Busch back to 31st on the starting grid. The came race day — and a new day rising. All with race cars flashing beneath a green flag — caution flags were rarely seen all afternoon — by lap number 73, Busch had charged through the pack like a man possessed and into the lead. At the halfway mark of the 200-lap race, Busch led Jeff Burton by 0.225-seconds and the race fell into something of a procession. By lap number 156, Busch had cleared out, leaving Burton a healthy 6.234-seconds adrift in second. Kyle Krisiloff’s spin on lap 156 put a small dent in things, but on lap 161 the race was back to green, and despite having to slice and dice his way through some traffic, Busch was soon back up at the sharp end of the field. It was smooth sailing until the lap 190-lap mark, when Krisiloff spun once again, forcing the NASCAR signalman to reach for and unfurl the big yellow tablecloth. Untimely for Busch, crew chief Jason Ratcliff had his driver “head fake” the filed, pretending to dive down pit lane before swerving back up on the track. The move worked, sending eleven cars into the pits, but it did not shake off the persistent Burton. With seven laps remaining in the race, everyone smashed their gas pedals into sheet metal and jammed gears. Busch took off like a scalded cat, never to be headed. Richard Childress Racing’s Jeff Burton held station in second, just ahead of teammate Clint Bowyer and Texas homeboy Bobby Labonte.

After boiling the hides in a post-race joy ride, alighting from his car and catching the checkered flag and motoring into Victory Lane, Busch was visibly thrilled to score his first Nationwide race of the year. “I almost cruised out of here because I don’t know where Victory Lane,” Busch, who led 126 laps, told ESPN. “This feels so good. This place is just so hard to win at. And for me, it’s just extra special to bring DLP their first NASCAR victory and to bring Toyota here to Victory Lane in Texas is great. Al these guys [on the crew], they work so, so hard on these things and I’ve torn a couple of tem up, so tanks.”

The seventh of 35 races, with his win in the O’Reilly 300, Busch moved up to fifth in the NASCAR Nationwide Series point chase.

Eric Johnson