Kyle Busch Has Had an Interesting Few Weeks

These past few weeks have been pretty eventful for Kyle Busch. His altercation with Ricky Stenhouse Jr at North Wilkesboro on May 19th led to fists being thrown, and now he finds himself in another sticky situation. On Sunday, at the NASCAR Cup Series race at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway, Busch got into a crash with Hendrick Motorsports’ Kyle Larson. The bump took place on the last lap of stage two of the race. Larson was racing on the left of Busch before the altercation, and then his No.5 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 crashed directly into Busch’s No.8 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1. Yes, the two have the same model car. After the crash, Busch couldn’t continue for the rest of the day. 

This was Busch's first DNF of the season. He took home first place at Gateway last year, so this wasn’t the best way to follow that up. The two racers, and teams, had different takes on the situation, specifically the blame/cause. “It looked like he got loose, I guess, down the front straightaway into Turn 1,” Busch said. “He was on older tires and trying to get us for a spot. Not sure what that single point was really gonna mean for him, but certainly hurt us a lot because it took that point away as well as the others that we’d get for the stage and then also the rest of the day. So very frustrating.” 

Larsons’ take on the situation was as to be expected pretty different. In a post-race press conference, he made a few comments on the situation, as well as a fellow member of his team. “I mean, he turned into me,” Larson said.  “Yeah, he f*cking crowded you down like a total idiot,” the crew member said. Larson also added that he had a flat tire, but later refuted the claim. No matter whose fault it was, the crash was pretty harmful to both teams, as they both had a decent amount on the line at this race. As we look to next week’s events, both teams and players will definitely look to bounce back, and Kyle Busch will hope not to get involved in another collision.