Kyle Busch wins at Dover with last-lap pass

DOVER, Del. — Kyle Busch denied Chase Elliott a first career Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series win at Dover International Speedway on Sunday, passing Elliott on the final lap of the Apache Warrior 400 for his fourth victory of the season and second in the three-race first round of the 2017 playoffs.

Elliott finished second, Jimmie Johnson was third, Martin Truex Jr. took fourth and Kyle Larson rounded out the top five.

Elliott led most of the 160 laps that made up the third stage of the race, taking the lead on the restart at the beginning of the final stage when Larson, the previous leader, bobbled because of a power issue.

Ryan Blaney managed to stay just in front of the leaders in the closing laps to finish on the lead lap but still fell one point shy of displacing Ricky Stenhouse Jr., who wasn’t on the lead lap, as one of the 12 advancing playoff positions.

Other drivers not advancing to round two are Austin Dillon, Kasey Kahne and Kurt Busch. Newman missed advancing by two points and Dillion, Newman’s Richard Childress Racing teammate, wound up four points shy of playoff advancement.

Larson and Truex combined to lead most of the first two stages that made up the first 240 laps of the 400-lap race. Larson won the second stage and Brad Keselowski won stage one.

Keselowski was one of only five drivers who still hadn’t pitted when the yellow flag, followed by a red flag, waved for the first time on lap 87 after a Jeffrey Earnhardt wreck at the entrance of pit road damaged a barrier of sand barrels.

After everyone but Keselowski, Kyle Busch, Stenhouse Jr., Danica Patrick and David Ragan already had pitted under green, those five drivers were the only ones on the lead lap when the yellow waved. Previous lead lap cars got back on the lead lap with a wave-around.

When the race restarted, Truex quickly got up to third and Larson sixth by the end of the first stage.

Busch got off pit road first to restart the second stage with the lead, but on lap 141 Larson got by him for the top spot and Truex took second.

NOTES: Ryan Blaney dominated and won the NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Dover International Speedway on Saturday. … Jimmie Johnson is the winningest driver at Dover with 11 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series victories, including the most recent race at Dover in June. Kyle Busch has 11 wins across all three NASCAR national series at Dover, including two in the Cup Series. … Martin Truex Jr. won last year’s playoff race at Dover. … Austin Dillon, Ryan Newman, Kurt Busch and Kahne were the bottom four playoff drivers in the standings heading into the Apache Warrior 400, the first elimination race of the 2017 playoffs, but Dillon was tied with Ricky Stenhouse Jr. for the 12th position, the last advancing position, in the standings. … Truex and Kyle Busch secured advancement to the second round of the playoffs with wins in the first two playoff races at Chicagoland Speedway and New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Kyle Larson and Brad Keselowski also were locked into the second round ahead of the Dover race by virtue of their position in the points standings … Larson, the third-place qualifier, was the only non-Toyota driver to start in the top six for Sunday’s race.