LONG POND, Pa — A few years ago, Kyle Busch said that he felt like his NASCAR Camping World Truck Series drivers were allergic to victory lane. Now….

John Hunter Nemechek bested Busch in Saturday’s CRC Brakleen 150 at the Pocono Raceway en route to his 11th career Truck Series victory tying him with Timothy Peters for 16th all-time. For Nemechek though, five of those 11 wins have come in just 13 races this season alone as he’s thriving in his move back down to the Truck Series with KBM.

See, Nemechek could have came back to the NASCAR Cup Series for a second straight year in 2021. Instead, he focused on going back down the ladder to forge a better path back up. The second generation driver is still very young of age and while he made it up to Cup pretty quickly, it didn’t take him long to figure out that it was the wrong path.

Not too often you get a second chance but with an opportunity to race for KBM, while it was going down two notches on the ladder, it is proving as one that could pay off for an even bigger way.

Nemechek, could have just been an after thought in Cup running in the back half of the field. While being a Cup driver is any NASCAR drivers’ goal, doing so in the situation that he was in wasn’t going to give him very long job security. With younger drivers winning in Trucks and Xfinity competition, there was a really good chance Nemechek could have ended up being overlooked and spending a career racing for lower budget teams.

That’s not the path he wanted. So, he soaked up his pride and went down to Trucks again but did so with a really good team. Nemechek needed Busch as much as Busch needed Nemechek.

KBM needed some help. He was always the first step in NASCAR to the younger Toyota drivers working their ways up the ranks. The system worked for years with guys like William Byron, Erik Jones, Bubba Wallace and Christopher Bell working their ways from KBM to Cup seats.

Once they left, KBM has been just okay. Kyle Busch would come down and race and would end up dominating. His full time drivers though, well they’d struggle to get to victory lane.

From 2018 through 2020, Busch won 10 times in 15 tries. His other full time drivers in that span had just three wins in 68 races.

See the dilemma?

Busch proved that his Trucks had the speed to win. He needed someone who can come in and join victory party — hence Nemechek.

Saturday’s race was further proof of that. Busch, was making his fifth and final start in the No. 51 Toyota this weekend in Pocono. He pit prior to the end of the second stage on Lap 26. That put him in the lead in the final stage on Lap 34 as he was going to try and stretch the fuel until the end.

Nemechek, last pit on Lap 31, one lap after the stage ended and also was going to stretch his fuel. He rode in third towards the end. Sheldon Creed rode between them in second.

It was playing out that they were likely going to finish 1-2-3. Then came the yellow for Stewart Friesen when he backed his No. 52 Toyota into the Turn 1 SAFER barrier with 10 laps-to-go. That changed everything. Busch, Creed and Nemechek now had enough fuel to make it to the end. Plus, it bunched them up for a final restart.

Busch chose the outside for that restart. Creed, elected to give up a front row restart spot and decided to lineup behind Busch instead. That made the low lane open and Nemechek decided to take it.

He’d beat Busch on the restart in Turn 1 and never look back. Nemechek, led the final seven laps en route to the victory. What made him so happy is that he said that the fastest truck won as we also beat Busch three times in Busch’s five tries this season.

He won 3-2.

In those three wins, Busch finished runner-up in each.

They’ve combined to win eight of the 13 races this year as Busch was in the top two in all five races run for him this season. It was also his fourth top two in his last five Pocono starts in the Truck Series.

For Nemechek, he has three wins in the last four Truck races as his No. 4 Toyota looks like a legitimate championship favorite now. He crossed the finish line 1.337-seconds in front of his boss on Saturday afternoon to give KBM their sixth win in their last seven Pocono starts.

Creed, finished third in his No. 2 Chevrolet while Tyler Ankrum and Austin Hill rounded out the top five.

For Creed, Ankrum, Hill and even sixth place finisher Matt Crafton, these top sixes are just what they needed. Creed’s last three finishes entering Saturday’s race was 35th, 35th and 14th respectively on the season. He had two top 10’s in his last eight starts entering.

Same for Ankrum. Nine of his last 12 finishes on the season were 15th or worse.

Hill has just two top five results in his last eight tries while Crafton had two top 10’s in that same span.

They went 3-4-5-6 respectively in a solid momentum building day for each.

Todd Gilliland was seventh in his No. 38 Ford for his eighth top seven in his last eight tries.

We now have just two races left in the regular season and the wildcard spots are taking shape. Hill is the top one at +183 while Zane Smith (+142) and Crafton (+106) all have a 100+ point lead on the cut line.

Friesen is +5 with Carson Hocevar +49 and Chandler Smith +28 hold the final three spots.

Johnny Sauter was wrecked on the start of the race by Jack Wood and fell to -28 points down. Ankrum did gain 30 points going from -63 to -33 while Austin Wayne Self is -41.

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