Kyle Busch finished 27th in the June 30 NASCAR Cup Series race in Nashville. Shockingly, that was the two-time champ’s best result in his last three races, including a pair of 35th-place finishes at Iowa and New Hampshire.
Busch added another miserable chapter to his recent run of misfortune while racing inside the top 5 in overtime on the 1.33-mile track. However, it came after the Richard Childress Racing pilot was the beneficiary of a NASCAR call that left many puzzled, including NBC’s Jeff Burton and Steve Letarte, who both criticized officials for their decision to allow the No. 8 driver to return to his previous position when he was involved in an incident that started with Kyle Larson and Ross Chastain.
“Real quick,” reporter Marty Snider began. “Kyle Busch got his spot back. NASCAR moved him all the way from the back all the way up here to the second row.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Jeff Burton responded.
“Not sure how that happened,” lead announcer Rick Allen chimed in. “But we’ll find out.”
Jeff Burton and Steve Letarte Criticize NASCAR’s Decision to Give Kyle Busch Back His Spots
A few minutes later, the booth addressed the subject again.
“So the rule is that you have to keep pace with the field, as the field takes the yellow and slows down,” Steve Letarte pointed out. “So as the 1 comes up, the 8 gets on the brakes, not to hit him. To your point, not his fault. But I see how many cars go through. I see the 23 go by. I see a whole bunch.”
“It’s just crazy that they’ve lined him up in fourth,” Burton said. “It’s not right.”
“I would love to see Kyle Busch win for the 20th year,” Letarte added, referring to the driver’s consecutive win streak of 19 years. “But I can’t see any way that Kyle Busch should be fourth in this situation. He was in the accident; not of his doing, or avoiding the accident, but you can’t stop on the race track. Cars that are on the left side going by at speed have to be scored.”
Busch Wrecks on Restart Minutes Later
While Busch benefitted from NASCAR’s decision, allowing him to restart in the second row behind Kyle Larson, it still didn’t help his final result. That’s because two restarts later, the No. 5 car ran out of gas and stumbled as soon it tried to fire, which stacked up Busch and all the cars in the outside row.
The RCR car got hit in the rear by Chase Elliott and shot up the track into the outside wall. The driver tried to keep his severely damaged car moving to no avail and it stopped on the start-finish line, which resulted in him getting out of his car in front of the grandstand to a lot of cheers from the nearby fans.
“Those cautions at the end of the race and into overtime really worked against us because we were close on fuel,” Busch said after the race. “On that last restart, we were fourth when the No. 5 (Kyle Larson) ran out of fuel just ahead of me and I had nowhere to go.”
With his finish, Busch dropped to 19th in the playoff standings and is 104 points below the cutline. Now, with just seven races remaining before the postseason, the 39-year-old finds himself in a must-win situation to earn a berth in the playoffs, which would also extend his consecutive season winning streak.
Based on how his season has gone thus far, it’s a long shot.
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