NASCAR: Kyle Busch knows payback is coming

Despite his apology, Kyle Busch knows that there will be repercussions of wrecking Chase Elliott late during Wednesday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Darlington Raceway.

The Toyota 500 NASCAR Cup Series race at Darlington Raceway was Chase Elliott’s race to win on new tires before Kyle Busch slid up the track and made contact with his #9 Chevrolet, sending him spinning into the inside wall on the front straightaway and knocking him out of the race.

Elliott, who had been leading the race, had pitted for new tires under the previous caution flag period and come out in sixth place. After the ensuing restart, he quickly made his way up to third and then began to sail by Busch’s slower #18 Toyota for second.

He was poised to sail by Denny Hamlin’s slower #11 Toyota as well, but those plans went out the window when Busch made a huge misjudgment.

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Instead of winning the rain-shortened 208-lap race around the four-turn, 1.366-mile (2.198-kilometer) egg-shaped oval in Darlington, South Carolina, Elliott finished in second to last (38th).

Immediately after this wreck, the rain started to fall and ended the race with Hamlin in first place and Busch in second.

Busch apologized for the incident multiple times after the race, admitting that he made a misjudgment but reiterating that he did not cause the wreck to cost Elliott the win on purpose.

But irrespective of his owning up to it and his supposed lack of intent, he knows that there will be repercussions of ruining Elliott’s race down the road.

Given how Elliott responded to effectively being wrecked out of a potential win, it seems pretty safe to say that Busch is right.

After Elliott was wrecked out of the lead by Hamlin at Martinsville Speedway in October of 2017, we saw him get retaliation two weeks later at Phoenix Raceway, sending Hamlin into the wall and causing one of his tires to go down, which ultimately resulted in a wreck just a few laps later that knocked him out of contention to advance to the Championship 4.

The only question is when and where retaliation will come. There are several NASCAR Cup Series races on the schedule over the next few weeks as the sport returns from the coronavirus pandemic. The next of these races is scheduled to take place this Sunday, May 24 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. This race, the Coca-Cola 600, is set to be broadcast live on Fox beginning at 6:00 p.m. ET.