After a 200-mile race on Thursday night, the Xfinity Series returned to Kentucky Speedway for a more typical 300-mile event Friday night.  Austin Cindric was just as much of a tough out as he was Thursday night, claiming his second straight victory to bring him within 33 points of the points lead.  This race wasn't quite as topsy-turvy as the Shady Rays 200 was, but was still an interesting watch.

For this race, Kurt Busch returned to the broadcast as boothmate to Clint Bowyer and Adam Alexander.  This created an interesting analyst pairing.  Bowyer is every bit of the fun-loving kind of guy that he always is.  Kurt Busch is not particularly that person, but they were previously teammates at Stewart-Haas Racing.  They've spent a fair amount of time together and actually play off of each other well.

Busch has a reputation in NASCAR for being quite sullen at times.  His relationship with the media is not good, to say the least.  Inappropriate conduct with media members (most notably ESPN's Dr. Jerry Punch) more or less got him fired from Team Penske after the 2011 season.  After threatening to beat up Bob Pockrass at Dover in 2012 while on probation after Pockrass asked him about being on probation (he said, "It refrains me from not beating the <expletive> out of you right now because you ask me stupid questions. But since I'm on probation, I suppose that's improper to say as well."), NASCAR suspended Busch for Pocono.

In recent years, especially since the legal issues that accompanied the end of his former relationship with Patricia Driscoll, Busch has mellowed a bit and appears to be a more enjoyable person to be around.  Today, he's one of the longest-tenured drivers in Cup and has the most starts of anyone that is currently full-time (701).  In his 20th full season in Cup, it's to be expected that Busch has a lot of knowledge to draw from.  He does, and works in his knowledge very well.  It's also quite the counter to Bowyer's mentality.  He can calm Bowyer down a little like Jamie McMurray can, which brings out Bowyer's knowledge as well.  On paper, Bowyer and Busch come off as an odd couple, but they do work well together.

Of the five races that were held last weekend in Kentucky, only the Cup and ARCA races managed to make it through the first couple of laps without issues.  This particular race had trouble on the first lap.

Kyle Weatherman smacked the wall on the first lap, littered the track with debris, then hit the wall again in Turn 3.  Debris not only cut one of Justin Allgaier's tires, but struck his windshield (leaving a knot in the process).  Viewers did get a replay of what happened to Weatherman, but not where any of the debris went.  The booth seemed very surprised that the yellow wasn't thrown for the crash.  I think that was justified.  What ultimately did bring out the yellow (Ryan Sieg's crash) was not related to Weatherman's incident.  That said, Allgaier wasn't the only one with a cut tire because of the debris.

Also of note, the booth did miss Joe Graf Jr. smacking the wall exiting Turn 4 at the end of the first lap.  I noticed it live and had to go back to make sure it was who I thought it was.  Ruined any real chance at a decent run for Graf after he started third.

During the race, viewers saw a set of Cindric's tires being taken away to the dunk tank for inspection.  This was described on-air as a relatively rare instance.  Doesn't happen every week.  NASCAR has never tolerated cheating tires and they're not stopping anytime soon.  They've already disqualified Johnny Sauter from a truck race earlier this year because one of his tires flunked a dunk test.  Front Row Motorsports once received a 150-point penalty (this was prior to changes in the points system after pin holes were discovered in a tire that went flat during a rain delay.

There was some decent racing to be had during the race, but seemingly not as much as Thursday night.  That said, there was good stuff over the final 30 laps.  The slickness of the track just never really changed over the first couple of days of the race weekend.  That's more or less why Brandon Jones wiped out while racing Daniel Hemric for second.