Busch battled Friesen and a timely teammate push, clinching his ninth Truck Series win at Atlanta after a dramatic checkered flag duel
By Holly Cain
NASCAR Wire Service
HAMPTON, Ga. — Kyle Busch took his third consecutive and record ninth win of his career in the Fr8 208 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at EchoPark Speedway on Saturday afternoon, capping a dramatic push to the checkered flag to collect his record 68th series victory.
In the closing laps, Busch, 40, exchanged the lead with series veteran Stewart Friesen in a flashback from the 2025 race on the 1.54-mile Atlanta high banks when Friesen finished runner-up to him. Ultimately, Busch’s No. 7 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet was again able to get the best of the duel, benefiting from a timely push from his teammate, Carson Hocevar, to reclaim the lead for good in the final seven laps.
The race went to an “adverse conditions” time-limit rule and ended on a pre-determined deadline, only 10 laps short of the original 135-lap scheduled distance.
Busch ultimately held off Hocevar by 0.114 seconds, with several trucks trying unsuccessfully to line up and make a run to the trophy in the closing laps. Hocevar was runner-up in the No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet, followed by Tricon Garage’s Gio Ruggiero, ThorSport Racing’s Ben Rhodes and 2025 series champion Corey Heim in the running order. A frustrated Heim, who drove the No. 1 Tricon Garage Toyota Tundra and won Stage 1, said post-race he didn’t know the race had been officially shortened.
“It got dicey there at the end,” a grinning Busch said after giving his trademark bow to the crowd at the finish line. “Certainly, a great race and it got exciting there at the end.
“Had a great teammate [Hocevar] behind me and have to give credit where credit is due. Early on was a little worried he wasn’t helping but there at the end he was right there … definitely made it a whole lot easier.”
It was actually Rhodes, a two-time series champion, who set the pace for most of the race — hoping to celebrate his 29th birthday by claiming his first trophy in more than a year. He led a race-high 70 laps but ran out of gas mid-race, forcing him to rally from a one-lap deficit at one point. Rhodes got back on the lead lap, however, and was challenging Busch in the final laps, just never able to get around the veteran and stay there.
In the final stage, Friesen, who won Stage 2, made a dramatic push forward, putting his No. 52 Friesen-Halmar Racing Chevrolet nose to nose with Busch’s Chevy Silverado lap after lap in the closing portion of the race. But again, Busch was able to prevail with the help of Hocevar’s push.
Last week’s Daytona winner Chandler Smith finished sixth, followed by Saturday’s polesitter Jake Garcia and a pair of NASCAR Cup Series regulars in John Hunter Nemechek and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Justin Haley rounded out the top 10, driving the No. 16 Kaulig Racing Ram in the manufacturer’s 2026 return to the series.
There were five leaders on the afternoon and 14 lead changes.
And even after all the victories at the track, Busch said he genuinely had to work for it this week, noting that with all the success comes a certain target on your back – less willingness for others to pull out of line and run with him.
“If there was a confidence meter on me, the start of the race it was at a 100 but then as we got through the second stage of the race it was dipping, it was a 40 just because it seemed like everybody had talked, and no one was helping Kyle today,” said the two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Busch, whose last win in a major NASCAR series was his truck victory at Texas last April.
“Every time I pulled out of lane and looked for two or three to go with me in order to get to the front, not one of them ever came to my rear bumper to push,” he said.
“Just seemed like at the beginning and middle of the race, I was having a tough time being able to make the moves I remember making last year by myself. Today it was harder to do that.”
The Front Row Motorsports driver Smith’s top-10 finish was enough to keep him atop the early championship standings, 28 points ahead of Tricon’s Ruggiero.
NASCAR officials announced before the race began that the event would have a time limit, following adverse weather that had delayed the start. Time expired at 4:20 p.m. ET, at which time the field ran two more green-flag laps — with no overtimes — before the end.
The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series makes its debut at the downtown St Petersburg Road Course in the OnlyBulls Green Flag 150 at St. Petersburg next Saturday (noon E.T., FOX, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). It will be the first street race in the series’ history.
Note: Post-race inspection in the Craftsman Truck Series garage was completed without issue, confirming Busch’s victory.