Kyle Busch wins, guns for three

FORT WORTH, Texas - Kyle Busch continues to extend streaks at the Texas Motor Speedway in search of a NASCAR first.

Busch won his fourth consecutive Nationwide Series race at the 11/2-mile, high-banked track yesterday. The dominating victory in the O'Reilly Challenge came a day after he won his fifth truck race in his last five starts in the series.

He will try to complete an unprecedented trifecta today and become the first driver to win all three of NASCAR's national series on the same weekend.

"I hope it happens - that would be the greatest thing," Busch said. "The hardest one is the last one."

Busch qualified fifth for today's race at Texas, where he is 0 for 9 in Sprint Cup races and finished 18th in April.

When Busch climbed out of the car in Victory Lane yesterday, he said he was "sorry" he won and would make it three in a row. When asked later about what reaction he expected if he did pull it off, he said he was "messing with the fans" with his comment and wasn't sure.

"People would get tired of buying tickets to the Kyle Busch show, I guess," he said. ". . . If luck is on our side and we play it smart, we could come out of here 3 for 3. That would be pretty special."

After taking the lead on the 11th of 200 laps, when he swung his No. 18 Toyota around pole-sitter Matt Kenseth in the first turn, Busch went on to lead for 179 laps and win by 3.154 seconds over Casey Mears, who was filling in for Jeff Burton in the No. 29 Chevrolet.

This is the 28th time in his career Busch has run all three series the same weekend, and the seventh time this year. It is the third time he has won two races - he did it at California in February and Bristol in August. In California, he won the Camping World Truck and Nationwide Series races before finishing third in the Sprint Cup event.

This was Busch's eighth Nationwide victory this year, extending his points lead to 272 over Carl Edwards with two races remaining. Busch has only to finish 15th Saturday at Phoenix to clinch his first NASCAR championship in any series.