NASCAR dug their own hole with Kyle Busch’s response

NASCAR dug their own hole when it comes to how Kyle Busch responded to a question about his spin at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Kyle Busch’s three-race NASCAR Truck Series winning streak at Las Vegas Motor Speedway came to an end in Friday night’s Bucked Up 200, but not before a valiant comeback which ultimately came up just one spot shy.

Busch finished this 134-lap race around the four-turn, 1.5-mile (2.414-kilometer) oval in Las Vegas, Nevada in second place behind John Hunter Nemechek, who drives full-time for his Kyle Busch Motorsports team, by just 0.686 seconds. Nemechek won stage one and led 94 laps.

Busch, who led 16 laps and won stage two ahead of his driver in second place, rallied to a second place finish after a flat tire in the race’s third and final stage cost him several spots and knocked him a lap off the lead lap.

But it could have been worse, as he finally got a caution flag after spinning out.

You be the judge. The question is implied.

Fox Sports’ Bob Pockrass asked Busch to explain what happened leading up to that spin.

Busch responded with the same four-letter word three times.

While it’s easy to look at this response and think of Busch as acting like he is infamously known to act whenever he doesn’t win or something else doesn’t go his way, it goes beyond that.

In fact, Busch was thrilled to see Nemechek take the checkered flag, marking the team’s first regular season win for one of their full-time drivers since Noah Gragson won at Kansas Speedway in May 2018 — even if it did mean he finished in second place as the first loser.

But he was keeping a tight lip here for his own good.

And you can thank NASCAR for that.

Back in November 2019, during the penultimate race of the round of 8 of the playoffs, Bubba Wallace spun out during a pit sequence in order to bring out a caution flag to save himself from losing more ground as a result of a flat tire.

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The fact that Wallace, who hadn’t even qualified for the playoffs and ultimately finished the season in a disappointing 28th place in the championship standings, spun out when he did ultimately led to several playoff drivers being screwed due to when they had made their pit stops.

A few days later, he admitted that he did it on purpose — even though that was obvious at the time. So NASCAR fined him $50,000 and docked him 50 points, 50 points which if he had, he would have finished the season in 27th place in the championship standings, a career-high at the time.

It was obvious from the start that Wallace did it on purpose. Everybody knew it.

But NASCAR did absolutely nothing until he straight-up admitted it when asked.

With Busch, it was obvious that he did it on purpose as well. And he took advantage of it. He went a lap down but got that lap back with the free pass and rallied from 26th place to second to help secure a 1-2 team for his own team.

So does he have any reason to discuss the spin?

“Nope. Nope. Nope.”

And not only did he not lie, but his bank account can thank him later.

Of course, NASCAR could still technically penalize him, but they are between a rock and a hard place here, given how they responded to the Wallace incident. However, that’s implying that NASCAR is consistent with penalties. Most fans know better.