Kyle Busch was despondent after spinning from the lead with 31 laps to go, dropping his shot of ending a 50-race winless streak. The veteran driver was attempting to carry again Ross Chastain in an intense back-and-forth battle when he spun on the exit of Flip 2. Busch was put in an ungainly aero spot behind a defensive Chase Briscoe — a playoff driver racing laborious to remain on the lead lap.
“I’m certain he was racing to remain on the lead lap with whoever was in entrance of him there,” mentioned Busch after the race. “Granted they’ve a race to run, however again within the previous days while you had been below 30 to go or no matter it was, lap visitors would sort of lay over and offer you a lane and let the leaders race. I simply wasn’t getting that, so I attempted to drive my hand into getting that and get to his outdoors, and for no matter purpose, it simply gave all of the air in all of the incorrect locations and I spun out.”
Busch defined it was “simply air” when requested concerning the incident because the automobiles by no means really touched. “I assume I simply obtained into too huge a rush,” he lamented.
Chastain inherited the lead from Busch after the spin and went on to win the race.
Ross Chastain, Trackhouse Racing, Kubota Chevrolet Camaro
Picture by: NASCAR Media
The 2-time Cup champion had fought laborious to get in entrance of Chastain in an exciting battle earlier than the ultimate cycle of green-flag stops, solely to see one more win slip away. He ended up ending a disappointing nineteenth. It is the newest misfortune to strike him with a possible 2024 victory in sight.
“I am numb. I do not know what to do,” Busch mentioned.
It was additional painful for Busch who was in place to win the Southern 500 at Darlington in opposition to Briscoe, however raced him cleanly and misplaced out within the common season finale. That win vaulted Briscoe into the playoffs whereas Busch missed out for the primary time in 12 years.
“It doesn’t matter what I anticipate,” mentioned Busch on if he anticipated some courtesy from Briscoe there resulting from latest historical past. “I don’t suppose anyone offers anybody something anymore. It’s all take, take, take.”
Busch is the one driver in NASCAR historical past to win no less than one Cup race yearly for 19 consecutive seasons, and he has six races left to increase that file to twenty.
Briscoe reacts
Briscoe reacted to the incident with regret and frustration, questioning if the automobiles ever touched (they didn’t).
“However these automobiles, they’re so delicate,” mentioned the Stewart-Haas Racing driver. “I couldn’t actually run on the wall, so I used to be attempting to simply make it the place we had a automotive width and a few inches, and I noticed him get unfastened as quickly as he obtained to my proper rear. It was unlucky. Positively, it didn’t really feel like I used to be attempting to do something, I used to be attempting actually to go away him the highest lane. So, yeah, these automobiles, simply as quickly as you get off to the proper, particularly right here while you’re working the wall, they simply get actually, actually unfastened.
“I hate it for him. He’s been so shut all 12 months lengthy, and I’m a Kyle Busch fan. So I wished to see him hold the streak alive. I hate that we had been a part of the dialog.”
