LONG POND - Stuck in fourth gear and with a burned out clutch, all Kyle Busch could do was wait for a push truck to get the car going.

When he did, the No. 18 M&M’s Mini’s Toyota Camry went straight to victory lane.

Busch overcame trouble with his transmission to save enough fuel and win the Explore the Pocono Mountains 350 Sunday to wrap-up a NASCAR Cup Series doubleheader weekend at Pocono Raceway.

In a fuel mileage battle that went down to the final few laps, Busch passed teammate Denny Hamlin coming to the white flag and held on for the victory.

Busch’s car sat at the start-finish line a little longer than usual after the race waiting for some assistance after his post-race celebration, but the end result was the product of a team that was strong all day dispute the issues.

“Kinda out of gas,” Busch said afterward. “I was just saving, just riding, just playing the strategy as best we could with what was given to us.

“I just can’t say enough about my team, and everybody at Joe Gibbs Racing, Toyota, TRD, all the work that they’re putting in. Sometimes in these races aren’t always won by the fastest car, but I still felt like we had the fastest car, even though we were in the back, and behind and having to come through and persevere through being stuck in fourth gear, having no clutch, all that stuff; it’s all burned out. Nothing left in this M&M’s Mini’s Camry. It was awesome today.”

With 10 to go, Busch, who led twice for 30 laps, was told by his team that he was good on fuel.

Brad Keselowski pitted from the lead with nine laps remaining for fuel, putting William Byron in the lead, Hamlin in second and Kyle Busch in third.

Trying desperately to save fuel, Byron started experiencing low fuel pressure with three laps to go and eventually was forced to come in for a splash of gas with two laps left in the 140-lap race.

Hamlin surrendered the top spot the next time by, handing the lead to Busch.

At the conclusion of Stage 2, Car Chief Nate Bellows climbed into the car on pit road to try to make repairs on the transmission issue, which started under a previous caution and had Busch holding the car in gear at one point.

Busch ended up coming back down pit road to top off with fuel before the final restart a few laps later after a caution for debris with 44 laps left, a move that helped him in the end.

“So we had a hard time getting on an off pit road, hard time doing restarts,” said Busch’s Crew Chief Ben Beshore. “We just decided to pit with one lap to go and take the penalty on the final restart there and get as much gas in as we can and hope it went green, and it sort of fell into our favor there with it going green and us able to save enough just to have enough to actually push the guys in front of us out of gas, and then have just enough to make it to the checkers.”

Kyle Larson, who crashed out of the lead in the final turn of the last Saturday, finished second.

The finish in the first race of the doubleheader ended a run of three straight points victories and four overall, including the All-Star Race.

“I don’t know. It’s surprising finish for us,” said Larson. “Our HendrickCars.com Chevy was really loose for a majority of the race, then we got a lot of nose damage there on one of the restarts. Was off on speed. I felt like after that. Cliff (Daniels, crew chief) and everybody did a really, really good job managing the race, coached me through saving fuel there at the end. Was hoping that the 18 (Kyle Busch) was going to run out. I saw the 11 (Denny Hamlin) running out. I was, OK, they’re teammates, they got to be close to running out.”

“The 18 did pit a lap after us under caution. That actually probably won them the race. But, yeah, second-place finish, I thought we would be outside of the top-20. A lot of points throughout the race today; we’ll take it. Happy about the effort for sure all weekend.”

Keselowski, who led a race-high 31 laps, finished third, followed by Kevin Harvick and Bubba Wallace.

Byron, who won Stage 2 and led 22 laps, finished 12th, while Hamlin came across the line in 14th.

The victory was the 59th in the Cup Series for Busch, who had five top 10s in the last seven races entering the weekend, including a win at Kansas and two third-place finishes (Darlington and Charlotte).

Entering the weekend, Busch had made 32 starts at Pocono Raceway posting three wins (2017, 2018, 2019), nine top fives and 16 top 10s. Last season’s doubleheader was a mixed bag for Busch. In the first race he posted a fifth-place finish but was caught in an incident in the second race and finished 38th

He was second in the first race of the doubleheader on Saturday.

Busch persevered on Sunday to claim his second win of the season.

“You don’t ever really know, but when we left pit road, that was it; the clutch was gone,” Busch said of the final stop, “so I wasn’t sure that I would be able to make it down pit road again and be able to leave with just my guys behind me pushing me. Even when I left that last time, it was smoking, I don’t know what was smoking, but probably the clutch because that was fried.

“Fortunately, we were able to get back around and get the restart timed right and then just start picking them off. We knew we were going to be close. We came down that last time to top off to put us within a lap, lap and a half of being able to make it to the end. And I think I’ve been in that same situation here a few years ago when we ran out of gas on the last lap coming out of Turn 2 and we weren’t able to win, so it was a little bit of vindication that we came back from that one to be able to win this one.”

XFINITY

… Austin Cindric won Sunday’s Xfinity race, holding off Ty Gibbs in the closing stages of the race for his 12th career victory. It was his fourth win of the year. The defending series champion, Cindric currently leads the point standings as well. Cindric is the sixth different winner in six Xfinity races at Pocono.

NO LUCK

... Alex Bowman, driver of the No. 48 Ally Chevrolet, won the Pocono Organics CBD 325 Saturday but finished seventh Sunday. If Bowman completed the Pocono Doubleheader sweep and won the Explore the Pocono Mountains 350, Pocono Raceway and the Pocono Mountains Visitors Bureau were going to award a total of $100,000 to five charities and one lucky fan. This is part of the ‘$100K Pocono Sweep Sweepstakes’ where five Pocono charities will win $18,000, each, and one lucky fan will be randomly selected to win $10,000. The sweepstakes officially closed Saturday at 7 p.m. and over 16,000 entries were cast.

UP NEXT

… The Cup Series heads to Road America for its next event, Sunday, July 4. The Xfinity Series will also be in action at Road America next weekend on Saturday.