Promising Chase turns sour for Kyle Busch

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In: NASCAR Cup Series News

If Talladega had an innocent victim, it was Kyle Busch. Caught up in a wreck not of his making on Lap 103, Busch finished 40th and failed to advance to the next round of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup by seven points—after entering Sunday’s race at Talladega second in the standings.

Busch’s race took a harsh turn for the worse after Aric Almirola tapped the rear bumper of JJ Yeley’s Toyota and started a chain-reaction crash on the backstretch. Busch slowed his Toyota behind the wreck, but Austin Dillon’s Chevrolet knocked Busch’s car into the inside wall, severely damaging the Camry.

Busch drove the crippled car to the garage, where his crew did yeoman work to get it back on the track. But by then, Busch was too far down the running order to recover.

Crew chief Dave Rogers was philosophical about the disappointing result, which thwarted the team’s strategy of running in the back, supposedly out of harm’s way (Busch was 28th when the accident occurred).

“It’s a shame–everyone has been working really hard,” Rogers said. “I felt like we got off to a slow start early in the season, and we were advancing through the playoffs pretty well with hard work and good decisions and good teamwork. The team was performing really well and working extremely hard. I thought we were in a decent spot coming into the race and rode around in the back.

“Kyle got checked up for the wreck and had everything saved up, but he got run over from behind. There is no safe place in here. Everyone, every time we come to a speedway everyone will strategize — we’re going to ride in the back, we’re going to ride in the front, we’re going to do this. The truth is that, if you’re out there on the race track at Talladega or Daytona, you have a pretty good chance that you’re going to get in a wreck and today was our day.”

NASCAR Wire Service
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