NASCAR at Martinsville 2016 Results: Winner, Standings, Highlights and Reaction

All afternoon long, Kyle Busch owned Martinsville Speedway. He pushed his car to the front of the pack, built multisecond leads and appeared to be running away with an easy win Sunday.   

Then a late caution put everything on hold. Luckily, Busch had the car to complete his dominant showing.

The driver of the No. 18 Toyota Camry led 352 of the 500 laps in the 2016 STP 500, earning his first win of the season after a series of close calls. The defending Sprint Cup champion had four top-five finishes in the year's first five races but had finished no better than third before Sunday's action.

At one point Busch was dominating the race to the point that Joe Gibbs Racing was posting memes:

AJ Allmendinger came through with by far his best performance of 2016 with a second-place finish. He has two straight top 10s. Kyle Larson, Austin Dillon and Brad Keselowski rounded out the top five.

Place	Driver
1	Kyle Busch
2	AJ Allmendinger
3	Kyle Larson
4	Austin Dillon
5	Brad Keselowski
6	Carl Edwards
7	Brian Vickers
8	Paul Menard
9	Jimmie Johnson
10	Ryan Newman

The last few laps of the race proved unfortunate for Matt Kenseth, who appeared to be the only one who could catch up to Busch down the stretch. Sitting in second place on the final restart, Kenseth got shuffled backward in the outside lane as traffic pushed toward the inside of the track. The No. 17 car didn't wind up finding its bearings until it was all the way back in 15th place.

A similar scenario played out for Kevin Harvick, who finished 17th. The New Hampshire Motor Speedway's Twitter feed highlighted Kenseth's and Harvick's plight:

Harvick (72 laps) and Kenseth (45 laps) were the only two other drivers with significant time leading the pack. Joey Logano (22 laps) and Paul Menard (10 laps) rounded out the leaders.

For Denny Hamlin, it was another miserable Martinsville experience. He has a history of brilliance as well as flabbergasting mistakes on the short oval, and he was much more in the latter camp Sunday. He was caught speeding on pit road during a Lap 94 stop, continuing a trend he said he hoped to stop this week.

Rank	Driver	Points	Wins
1	Jimmie Johnson	216	2
2	Kevin Harvick	220	1
3	Kyle Busch	215	1
4	Brad Keselowski	178	1
5	Denny Hamlin	172	1
6	Carl Edwards	206	0
7	Joey Logano	196	0
8	Austin Dillon	176	0
9	Kurt Busch	176	0
10	Dale Earnhardt Jr.	172	0

"I don't know how many pit-road penalties I've had here at this race track or why I choose to push it on pit road knowing that I have the speed on the race track that we've shown," Hamlin said, per Jordan Bianchi of SB Nation. "The bonehead things that I've done—I've had my penalties in the race where what does it really matter on Lap 80 if you gain a spot on pit road since you have so many more laps."

Hamlin's issues only got worse on Lap 221, as his No. 11 car wheel-hopped its way into the Turn 1 wall. He wound up finishing in 39th place, 279 laps off the pace.

"It's my first time ever doing it here, so I'm a little embarrassed," said Hamlin, per Tom Jensen of Fox Sports. "It came out of the blue."

The Texas Motor Speedway's Twitter account posted a GIF to describe Hamlin's afternoon:

Also spending most of his day in the garage was Aric Almirola, who had his engine blow out after completing 206 laps. The No. 43 car spent most of the early day running well but soon dropped three cylinders before the engine went down altogether. NASCAR Wonka provided a meme:

As for Busch, this continues one of the most impressive runs in recent NASCAR history. Since returning from injury last year, he has realized every bit of promise that those in the sport knew he had since his arrival. While he remains a polarizing figure among fans, there's no doubt Busch is at the top of his game right now.

If the sport is not careful, there will be a whole lot of competition for second place the rest of the way.  

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Post-Race Reaction

Busch highlighted the importance of his truck race win, per Jeff Gluck of USA Today: "It certainly helps when you get to run other divisions, and that’s why I do it—to pay off on Sundays. It doesn’t work every single weekend, but it works more times than it doesn’t."

He also spoke of being happy to take his first clock to the trophy case: “To win here in Martinsville is pretty cool, you know. Finally get to take a clock home. A lot of people said I didn’t deserve one yesterday, and maybe I don’t. But I certainly got one today."

Allmendinger seems happy with the difference from 2015 to 2016. “I’m trying my butt off," he said, per Gluck. "I didn’t like myself last year. I didn’t like who I was, I was frustrated. I want to be better for these guys, guys that when they step up, they make me better. I’m trying to be different, but I’m not doing a lot of different stuff. They’re just building me better race cars.”

Larson is ready to compete for future titles. “It was really fun this whole weekend to be competitive on the race track," he said, per Gluck. "Normally I’m very, very bad here. To finish top three feels like a win for me. Never would’ve thought that I’d finish top three here, and now I feel like maybe I can see a clock in my future.”