Kyle Busch holds off Kevin Harvick to win at Texas

The win is Kyle Busch’s first of the season and 44th in the NASCAR Cup Series.

Kyle Busch got the jump on a late restart then outran Kevin Harvick to win the O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway, snapping a string of near misses through the opening weeks of the 2018 NASCAR Cup Series season.

Busch was the leader on a restart when the green flag waved to resume the race with 23 laps remaining. He quickly built up a multi second advantage over second-place Harvick, who had the fastest car for much of the afternoon. Harvick would trim Busch’s lead, but couldn’t completely close the gap.

“We might have been just a tick behind (Harvick) on overall speed,” Busch said. “But when we were out front and we were where we needed to be there at the end, we were just able to hold them off and then run the right line in order to hold them off.”

Busch’s breakthrough win follows him finishing second three times in the first six races of the season. It is his 44th career win in NASCAR’s premier division, tying him with Bill Elliott for 16th on the all-time list.

“So cool though to be in Victory Lane - finally this year and punch our ticket into the playoffs,” Busch said. “And of course, you know also just continue our hot streak of being the points leader right now and keeping these guys focused on what we need to do all year long.”

Harvick dominated early and won the first stage by nearly an 11 second margin. A rash of miscues on pit road -- that included a slow stop, a wheel not fastened securely and a penalty for too many crew members over the wall -- undid his bid for a fourth victory on the year.

“We did overcome a lot,” Harvick said. “That was unfortunate.”

Jamie McMurray finished third, with Erik Jones fourth and Ryan Blaney fifth. Joey Logano, Kurt Busch, rookie Darrell Wallace Jr., Clint Bowyer and rookie William Byron completed the top 10.

Martin Truex Jr. and Kyle Larson were both victimized by right-front tire failures resulting in each being involved in separate hard crashes. Truex, the defending Cup Series champion, was running second to Harvick on Lap 80 when his tire let go and sent him slamming into the Turn 4 wall; Larson was fifth on Lap 126 when his tire blew as he entered Turn 1.

Neither Truex nor Larson was injured.

“Speeds are really fast here today with the cool temperatures and I don’t know if that had something to do with it or not,” Truex said. “We’ll just have to go back and evaluate that, but all in all we were going to be in for a good day. We were making the car better and still had room to go. We were as fast as anybody.”

A seven-car crash brought out the red flag with 155 laps remaining. The pileup began when Hamlin bobbled while trying to pass Almirola causing Hamlin to clip Almirola’s car spinning both. In the aftermath Almirola, Hamlin, Jimmie Johnson and Brad Keselowski all sustained significant damage and were unable to continue.