Full Throttle

With a push from teammate Aric Almirola, Kyle Busch surged past Todd Bodine in the final quarter-mile of Saturday’s Mountain Dew 250 fueled by Fred’s at Talladega Superspeedway to win his sixth race of the season and the 15th of his career.

The race concluded with a green-white-checkered flag finish that took the event four laps beyond its scheduled distance of 94 laps. Busch led the field to a restart on Lap 97 after contact between, Bodine, Mike Skinner and Johnny Sauter ignited an 11-truck wreck on the backstretch on Lap 91.

Heavily damaged in the melee was the No. 33 Chevrolet of series leader Ron Hornaday Jr., who lost two laps and finished 17th. Matt Crafton, second in the standings, came home 10th and trimmed Hornaday’s lead to 202 points.

“I owe everything to Aric Almirola today,” Busch said. “From that last pit stop to the end, I told him that, if he just stayed with me, they wouldn’t be above to beat the 15 (Almirola) and the 51 (Busch). Awesome job to Aric. He can take half of my pay after today.”

The last remark was tongue-in-cheek, given that Busch provides driving services to Ballew without compensation.

Almirola was thrilled to get the 1-2 finish for Ballew, but he was disappointed not to be the “1″ in the equation.

“I’m just proud of Billy Ballew and all these guys on his race team, man,” Almirola said. “His 300th start — for him to win in that fashion, that was pretty cool. Everybody said in practice that when me and Kyle got hooked up, it didn’t matter who was in front or behind. We were just really, really fast.

“I’m just disappointed. I told Billy before the race started that I wanted it to be a 1-2 finish, but I wanted to be ‘1′ some kind of bad.”

To Bodine, the difference was the help Almirola was able to give to Busch.

“Kyle had a teammate right behind him, and that’s what you have to have in (superspeedway) racing,” said Bodine, who took the lead on Lap 97 with a push from Crafton only to fall to third at the end.

”With one (lap) to go, we had the right move and got to the outside,” said Bodine, who finished third. ”Things were going to be great, but Kyle had a teammate behind him. That’s what he needed to do to win.”

While Busch won, the race also tightened up the points race with three races remaining.

Leader Ron Hornaday Jr. was involved in an 11-truck crash late in the race and finished 17th. Matt Crafton finished 10th and trimmed the lead from 224 to 202.

Terry Cook finished fourth, followed by David Starr and Mario Gosselin. Stacy Compton, Dennis Setzer, Justin Hobgood and Crafton completed the top 10.

Toyota swept the top five places and clinched the series manufacturers championship for the marquees fourth straight title.

Toyota has won the NCWTS manufacturer’s championship each year since 2006, along with a pair of driver titles for Todd Bodine (2006) and Johnny Benson (2008). Overall, this is the sixth time Toyota has earned a NASCAR manufacturer’s title since the start of the 2004 season. Toyota recently also captured its second consecutive NASCAR Nationwide Series manufacturer’s crown.