Before the halfway point of Sunday’s Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Martinsville, Kyle Busch was in jeopardy of joining teammates Denny Hamlin and Matt Kenseth, eliminated last Sunday at Talladega, on the Chase sidelines.
Busch hit a patch of moisture on the track, spun on Lap 171 and damaged the front suspension of his No. 18 Joe Gibbs racing Toyota. He dropped to 28th in the running order for a restart on Lap 180.
But Busch worked his way through the field, ultimately finishing fifth and leaving Martinsville tied with Martin Truex Jr. for second in the Chase standings behind race winner Jeff Gordon.
“I screwed us up early in the race and touched that water down there in Turn 1 and spun out with the 3 car (Austin Dillon), so that was my bad,” Busch said. “I bent up the front end of the car and it was just never right from there on out, but we persevered and we just made the changes that we needed to make for this car for our conditions that we had.
“The car there at the end was good enough for a top five, so I’m glad we finished there. Everybody is so equal here and when it’s those last sort of restarts like that you are just going for everything you’ve got – whoever’s in front of you, get them out of the way. All in all, good day for us. Real proud of this team and everything that we’ve been doing this year. Hopefully we keep it going.”
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