2012 Indiana 250

Outside pole sitter Kyle Busch took the lead from pole sitter Kasey Kahne after Kahne had trouble getting up to speed on the start and Busch led the first lap. The first caution would fly on lap 15 for it being the competition caution. Denny Hamlin won the race off of pit road and he led the field to the restart on lap 22. On lap 23, Brad Keselowski took the lead from Hamlin. On lap 27, Kyle Busch took the lead from Keselowski. Green flag pitstops soon began around lap 36. Kyle Busch pitted on lap 37 and gave the lead to Kasey Kahne. On lap 39, the second caution would fly for the first accident of the day when Danica Patrick bumped Reed Sorenson in turn 1 and spun Sorenson. Sorenson overcorrected back the right and collected Patrick in the process. Kyle Busch was the new leader and Busch led the field to the restart on lap 48. Busch was looking for his first Nationwide Series win of the season.

But with 38 laps to go, the 3rd caution would fly for debris. Sam Hornish Jr. won the race off of pit road and he led the field to the restart with 33 laps to go. With 29 laps to go, Brad Keselowski took the lead from Hornish which would be the last lead change of the race. With 27 to go, the 4th caution would fly when Brian Scott got loose in turn 4 and spun and collected Ty Dillon giving Dillon damage. The race would restart with 22 laps to go. But on the restart, the 5th and final caution would fly when Kyle Busch got loose under Sam Hornish Jr. and spun off of turn 1 and barely missed the inside wall in the process. But the spin would cost Busch a chance at victory. The race would restart with 18 laps to go. On the restart, Elliott Sadler took the lead from Keselowski, or so he thought. Sadler ended up getting black flagged by NASCAR for passing Keselowski before the start-finish line since Keselowski was the leader. But Sadler argued that Keselowski spun the tires which would have been clean restart for Sadler. Sadler argued until with 12 laps to go when he decided to pit after he was warned he was going to be disqualified for not obeying NASCAR's order. Keselowski pulled away from second place and Keselowski would win the first ever Nationwide Series race at Indianapolis. The win would be Keselowski's 3rd of the season and gave his owner Roger Penske, whose won 15 Indianapolis 500's as an owner in IndyCar, his first win at Indianapolis in all of NASCAR. Sam Hornish Jr., Ty Dillon, Denny Hamlin, and Austin Dillon rounded out the top 5 while Michael Annett, Joey Logano, Paul Menard, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., and Jeremy Clements rounded out the top 10.^[4]