Kyle Busch gets his first win of season at dirt-covered Bristol

BRISTOL, Tenn. (AP) — Kyle Busch backed into the record book by stealing a win at dirt-covered Bristol Motor Speedway.

That's what he'd say if it had been anyone else, right?

Busch won his first race of the season Sunday night by sliding past the leaders as Tyler Reddick and Chase Briscoe spun racing for the win. Busch tied Hall of Famer Richard Petty's NASCAR record for victories in consecutive years at 18.

But his tune was far different at Bristol than it was six weeks ago when Alex Bowman won at Las Vegas and an irate Busch complained that Bowman is “the same (expletive) guy who backs into every (expletive) win that he ever (expletive) gets.”

When it was Busch's turn to inherit a win, he had no problem collecting the checkered flag.

“We got one, you know?” Busch said. “It doesn’t matter how you get them, it’s all about getting them.”

Later, he acknowledged that he did “back into one” but said it felt good.

Reddick was chasing the first Cup win of his career, led 99 of the 250 laps, and controlled the race from the final restart with 24 laps remaining. Lapped traffic gave Briscoe a shot and Briscoe made his move in the third turn as he tried to slide inside past Reddick.

The move backfired and both cars spun out of control and Busch, who was running third, simply skirted through for his first win.

Busch won for the ninth time in Cup at Bristol — first time in two dirt races — and was booed by the smattering of fans who waited out two rain delays that pushed the first race on Easter Sunday since 1989 to nearly four hours.

“I mean, man, I feel like Dale Earnhardt Sr. right now. This is awesome. I didn’t do anything,” Busch said of the 1999 race in which Earnhardt was booed for bumping Terry Labonte out of the