A loose wheel coupled with a lack of cautions (four) dropped Kurt Busch to a 21st-place finish in Sunday’s AAA 400 Sprint Cup Series race at Dover International Speedway.
Busch radioed the Furniture Row Racing crew on Lap 156 of 400 that his right-rear wheel was coming loose. The incident forced Busch to make an unscheduled pit stop under green-flag conditions. When he returned to action on the all-concrete Monster Mile, he found himself in 26th place and three laps down.
“A loose wheel did us in,” said Busch, who qualified ninth. “We were way off at the start, but after the first pit stop we made some good changes to the car and started to make a move. But once again we had an issue with a loose wheel and that put us a couple of laps down. And with the lack of cautions we couldn’t make it up.”
What made it even worse for Busch was that a caution came out nine laps after he pitted under green.
“Nothing went our way today,” stated Busch. “This is the Chase and you can’t afford to have these problems. We need to regroup and get it together for Kansas next week.”
After the third of 10 Chase playoff races, Busch sits ninth in driver points (see Chase standings below).
The race winner was Jimmie Johnson. Rounding out the top-10 in order were: Dale Earnhardt Jr., Joey Logano, Jeff Gordon, Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick, Matt Kenseth, Ryan Newman, Greg Biffle and Clint Bowyer.
There were four cautions for 21 laps and 13 lead changes among seven drivers.
The Sprint Cup Series heads to Kansas Speedway’s 1.5-mile oval for Sunday’s (Oct. 6) Hollywood Casino 400.
FRR PR
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