FORT WORTH, Texas - Driving his first race for ML Motorsports, Shelby Howard was hoping for a top-25 finish in Saturday's O'Reilly 300 NASCAR Nationwide Series event at Texas Motor Speedway.
The 23-year-old from Greenwood was close to accomplishing the feat until a flat right, rear tire left he and the Warsaw-based team with a 32nd-place finish.
Howard, driving Mary Louise Miller's No. 70 Chevy, was running 24th with six laps remaining in the 200-lap event when he suffered the misfortune of the flat tire.
"We definitely would have taken that finish," Howard said of the fact that he was running 24th with six laps to go. "I was hoping for a top-25 finish. The guys worked so hard on the car. The flat tire, it was just one of those things that was out of our control. It's disappointing. I wanted to get out of here with a top-25, but there's not a whole lot we can do about something like that."
While Howard and ML Motorsports were hit with a late-race misfortune, Kyle Busch was nearly flawless in winning his third-straight Nationwide Series race at the 1.5-mile track.
The Sprint Cup Series star from Las Vegas started on the pole and dominated Saturday's race, leading a track-record 178 of 200 laps.
The victory was the second Nationwide Series win of the season for Busch, and the 23rd of his career.
Tony Stewart finished second, followed in the top five by Brad Keselowski, David Ragan and Paul Menard.
Matt Kenseth finished sixth, while Mike Bliss, Jeff Burton, David Reutimann and Justin Allgaier finished seventh through 10th.
Howard qualified 27th for Saturday's race and worked his way up through the field in the early going and ran in the top 25 the majority of the day.
"We didn't really have a lot of time to work together before this," said Howard, who replaced Mark Green in the No. 70 car less than two weeks ago. "This is a great group of guys at ML Motorsports. I thought we worked well together, and we're only going to get better."
Howard and ML Motorsports are scheduled to compete in 18 more Nationwide Series races together this season, with the next being Saturday at Nashville Superspeedway.
"Other than that flat tire, we're happy with the way things went today, with this being our first time working together," said ML Motorsports crew chief Brian Ross. "Shelby gave us a lot of good feedback. We just need to get these 1.5-mile tracks figured out. Iím excited about going to the short tracks with Shelby. I think we're gonna have a good short-track package. He's a short-track racer like I am."
Ross is known throughout the midwest as a standout late-model driver, as well as having a high level of success in the CRA Series and the Hooters Pro Cup Series.
In 2000, Ross was the ARCA RE/MAX Series rookie of the year.
Howard raced against Ross in the Kendall Late Model Series and the Hooters Pro Cup Series.
Short-track races that Howard and Ross will work together in this season include Richmond, O'Reilly Raceway Park, Iowa and Memphis.
