NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series Overview
Event: NGOTS 250 (Race 4 of 23), 250 Laps – 70/70/110; 131.5 Miles
Location: Martinsville (Va.) Speedway (.526-mile oval)
Date/Broadcast: March 23, 2019 at 2 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN and Sirius/XM NASCAR 90
What You Need to Know
- 200th time’s the charm – owner-driver Kyle Busch earned his 200th NASCAR national series victory on Sunday at Auto Club Speedway in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race. It was his 53rd Cup Series win. He also has 53 Gander Outdoors Truck Series wins, and 94 Xfinity Series wins. In his 17-year career, he has amassed a total of 998 starts across all three series.
- At Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Busch earned his 53rd career NGOTS win in dominating fashion. Busch led the pack to the green at his home track after winning the pole, then proceeded to win each stage, only relinquishing the lead for green-flag pit stops in the final stage. With 15 laps to go, Busch regained the lead and led the final laps to take home the victory and propel the No. 51 to the lead in the owner point standings.
- Busch has nine total NGOTS starts at Martinsville Speedway and has one win (2016), one pole (2010), five top-five and six top-10 finishes (2010). In his last three starts at the famous short track for KBM, “Rowdy” has finished second twice and earned the victory once.
- In addition to Saturday’s race at Martinsville, owner-driver Busch is scheduled to make two more NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series starts in the No. 51 for KBM in 2019 at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, and Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway.
- Veteran crew chief Rudy Fugle will lead the 51 team this season. Fugle has guided his team to four Owner’s Championships (2013, 2015, 2016 and 2017) as a crew chief at KBM, including combined Owner’s/Driver’s Championships with Erik Jones in 2015 and Christopher Bell in 2017. The New York native’s drivers have combined for 24 wins, 22 poles, 58 top-five and 92 top-10 finishes across his 116 races calling the shots for the organization. Working with Fugle in 2013, Busch collected five wins, eight top-five and nine top-10 finishes across 11 Truck Series starts.
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Kyle Busch, Driver Q&A
Do you pay attention to various milestones other than the accomplishment of 200 wins?
“It’s something that I don’t necessarily pay attention to. As long as you’re successful and doing a good job and doing your job about what you know how to do and you’re winning those races then you’re going to be eclipsing a lot of milestones and certainly it’s been pretty awesome so far.”
You were pretty open for years about wanting to get to 200. Now that that’s been checked off, do you have another number in mind? Anything beyond this is just a number?
“I think anything beyond 200 is just another number. I mean, I could go lightly and say 250, or I could reach for the stars and say 300. What’s wrong with that? So, we’ll go out on Saturday at Martinsville and try to keep all the momentum we have going across all three series this year and try to knock 201 out the way our first time out. We’re two for two this year in the NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series with our No. 51 Cessna team led by Rudy Fugle and looking to make it three for three this weekend.”
Kyle Busch Career Highlights
- Busch has a total of 147 NGOTS starts and is ranked first in NGOTS wins (53), second in laps led (6,608) and fourth in poles (22). Busch has a total of 95 top-five and 116 top-10 finishes with an average start of 7.2 and an average finish of 7.0.
- The 33-year-old driver has now won 36.05% (53/147) of the NGOTS races he has entered and finished first or second in 53.7% (79/147).
- Busch, has 200 all-time combined NASCAR national series wins which is tied for first all-time (Richard Petty 200).
- In August of 2010, Busch made history when he won the NGOTS, NASCAR XFINITY Series and Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series races at Bristol Motor Speedway, becoming the only driver to sweep all three of NASCAR’s top three series at one track on the same weekend. He then repeated the feat in August of 2017.
Kyle Busch No. 51 Cessna Tundra:
KBM-038: The No. 51 Cessna team will unload KBM-038 on Saturday in the NGOTS 250 at Martinsville Speedway. This chassis has 12 starts and has carried three different drivers to a total of five wins, the last coming for Noah Gragson at Kansas in 2018. In its most recent outing, Gragson piloted KBM-038 to a second-place finish at Phoenix last fall.
- In 47 starts at the “Paperclip,” KBM drivers have collected six wins (Denny Hamlin, Oct. 2011, 2012; Darrell Wallace Jr., Oct. 2013, 2014; Kyle Busch, March 2016; Noah Gragson, Oct. 2017), four pole positions (Kyle Busch, Oct. 2010; Denny Hamlin, Oct. 2013; Darrell Wallace Jr., Oct. 2014; Todd Gilliland, Oct. 2018), 20 top-five and 34 top-10 finishes, with a collective average starting position of 9.0 and an average finish of 8.3.
- The No. 51 is the winningest number in the KBM stable with 26 trips to victory lane in Truck Series action
- KBM holds the NGOTS records for most career wins (70) and most wins in a single season (14 in 2014). In addition to collecting a series-record six Owner’s Championships, the organization has produced two championship-winning drivers; Erik Jones (2015) and Christopher Bell (2017).
