JOLIET, Ill. - It was more difficult but in the end the results were the same.
Kyle Busch passed Jimmie Johnson with one lap to go to score his seventh Sprint Cup win of the season and a sweep of the Chicagoland Speedway weekend with his victory in Saturday night's Lifelock.com 400.
Busch worked his way around Johnson on the second-to-last lap of Saturday's first Sprint Cup night race at Chicagoland Speedway to notch his 14th victory in NASCAR's top three circuits this season.
“I gave up on myself,” Busch said after losing the top spot to Johnson in the closing laps. “I just didn’t think I could do that. I’ve watched Jimmie do that several times. I don’t know how I did it. I pushed Jimmie to go.”
Busch set a race record by leading 165 of the 267 laps and is more than halfway home to breaking the mark for regular season victories in the Modern Era of 13, held by Richard Petty and Jeff Gordon.
"This is a dream season, man,” Busch said. “I just cannot believe this.”
Johnson hung on for second followed by Kevin Harvick, Gerg Biffle and defending race winner Tony Stewart rounded out the top five.
“He timed it just right and rolled up on me,” Johnson said. “When I heard the spotter say. ‘Looking!’ I knew I was in trouble."
“I didn’t make the best decision there on the restart. I should have given him the inside. I really wasn’t thinking defense, we had such a good car. Looking back if I had to do it all over again I would have played defense more.
“The bright side is we showed we could beat that 18 car. We were pulling away until that caution.”
Harvick's third place finish was impressive for the No. 29 team, which was seeking its third career Chicagoland victory.
"Well I really thought the No. 48 had the dominant car and the eighteen kinda bonsai-ed in there to the outside and it stuck and just kind of pinched the forty-eight there off the corner and killed his momentum and was just able to keep going," Harvick said of the finish. "I thought I might be in the right spot there coming into the last corner there but just came up a little short."
Brian Vickers, Matt Kenseth, David Ragan, Martin Truex, Jr. and Ryan Newman completed the first ten finishers.
Carl Edwards had a dominant car just past the race's midpoint and drove to the lead. But a broken front spoiled ended his chances at a fourth victory of the season.
The Sprint Cup Series now takes the weekend off before returning to action on Sunday, July 27th with the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
