Is NASCAR To Blame For Kyle Busch’s Wreck At Michigan?
By Cole Mentzel
All Kyle Busch has to do to make the Chase is stay in the top 30 in the standings and win one race this season. His chances at that took another hit this past Sunday in Michigan when he was involved in a single car wreck on Lap 52 of the Quicken Loans 400. His wreck occurred just a lap after the race was re-started, when it probably shouldn’t have been.
As the cars raced around for their first lap after the re-start, Busch got loose and slammed into a SAFER barrier right behind his brother Kurt and slowly rolled down the track. We all know the rain had a huge factor in the race but according to a few drivers, it was still raining during this re-start.
The race had already been through a few red flags and the previous one had been the longest. However, there were reports that rain was falling in turn 4 just before the race went green again. Kevin Harvick and Jeff Gordon were two drivers out of many that voiced their opinions on the situation at hand yesterday. They both expressed their frustration over the radio and suggested the race shouldn’t have gone green for the safety of the drivers, such as Kyle Busch.
If you’re active on Twitter, then you know that race announcer Mike Joy loves to answer questions from the fans. I was curious on what he saw from the tower so I asked him and he responded:
We didnt, but we can't see everything. “@cole_mentzel: Gordon/Harvick think rain caused 18 wreck. Did you see rain before the green flag?”
— Mike Joy (@mikejoy500) June 15, 2015
Though Mike Joy and the other announcers didn’t see rain in Turn 4, I did get some replies from fans who were there and they said it was starting to sprinkle with one to go in the caution. The wreck was certainly unique the way that Busch was next to his brother one second and into the wall the next, so should NASCAR have waited before starting the race back up? They could’ve run a few more laps just to make sure the rain didn’t get any worse (which it didn’t) but I don’t think they should’ve started it back up right then if there was rain hitting the track.
This week was truly different from others because we saw the race get red-flagged on four separate occasions, with the last one being the reason the race was cut short on Lap 136. I would think this situation will be brought up privately between NASCAR and other drivers just because of how hard Busch hit the wall and it should be interesting to see if anything comes out soon.
More from Kyle Busch
- NASCAR: Darrell Wallace Jr. calls Kyle Busch’s comments stupid
- NASCAR responds to Kyle Busch’s marketing campaign remarks
- NASCAR: Does Kyle Busch have a point, or is he just complaining?
- NASCAR: Ryan Blaney rips Kyle Busch for his recent remarks
- NASCAR: Kyle Busch not thrilled with young driver marketing campaigns
A frustrated Kyle Busch, for obvious reasons, declined comment after the wreck and stayed in his car for a little while after it returned to the garage. There are only 11 races left until the Chase begins and Busch is still 173 points behind 30th place. Finishing 43rd didn’t help any and it’s going to be incredibly hard to overcome those odds right now. One more bad finish would make it all but impossible.
It’s unfortunate that something like a little rain could put a driver’s chances at a Championship in jeopardy, but things like that are a part of the sport. NASCAR has made so many strides in the past years to help with the control of wet tracks and I can only imagine that they will continue to improve on those new additions, especially when incidents like this happen.