Kyle Busch takes a break in Charlotte testing to give his side of the Richmond run-in with Dale Jr.
Hey, Junior and Kyle know Saturday could have turned out worse for them. Just ask Jimmie Johnson (48) Action like this is why Richmond keeps selling out.
(Photo Credit: Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
By Mike Mulhern
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CHARLOTTE
Kyle Busch and Dale Earnhardt Jr. celebrated Cinco de Mayo Monday at Lowe’s Motor Speedway with a long, hot day of testing NASCAR’s new winged car, not just for next week’s Sprint All-star race and the following week’s 600, but for the rest of the upcoming mid-sized tracks on the NASCAR tour.
It has been a frustrating spring for most NASCAR drivers with the new machine, and after Jeff Gordon’s woeful performance at Texas Motor Speedway – where drivers and crews had wanted to test, only to be turned down by NASCAR officials – this week’s special two-day test at Humpy Wheeler’s 1-1/2-mile track was set.
Two other stories, of course:
—The aftermath of the Busch-Earnhardt tangle at Richmond Saturday night.
—Joey Logano’s victory Sunday at newly reopened Rockingham Speedway. The 17-year-old sensation won the 312-lap ARCA race at the Sandhills track – in a Joe Gibbs Chevrolet, not a Toyota, in a curious twist.
Logano finally turned NASCAR-legal 18 May 24th and is set to step up to the NASCAR Nationwide series, in Gibbs cars, at Dover, Del., later this month. “I was bummed I didn’t get the whole field lapped,” Logano says with a smile. “That’s the plan everywhere I go.”
Logano beat NASCAR veteran Ken Schrader by four seconds. And Schrader says “That kid is for real. We’re going to be watching him on TV for a number of years.”
Logano is the teenage racing sensation that Mark Martin began touting several years ago as already ready for NASCAR’s Cup division.
NASCAR’s next superstar? Joey Logano’s big debut is just a few weeks away, and he warmed up by winning the Rockingham ARCA race
(Photo by Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR)
Kyle Busch (18) dogs Dale Earnhardt Jr...just moments before they crashed on lap 398 of the scheduled 400.
(Photo Credit: Chris Trotman/Getty Images for NASCAR)
While Earnhardt was trying to keep his nose to the grindstone here Monday, Busch was front-and-center, not dodging the media but making his case and taking all questions.
Earnhardt did note that he couldn’t do much criticizing of Busch for Saturday night’s run-in, while the two were dicing for the lead and the win in the final miles, because he’d kayoed Busch at Kansas City last fall, when Busch was making a strong run at the NASCAR championship. That incident probably cost Busch any shot at the title.
So the two spent Monday trying to put the flap behind them…though Earnhardt will certainly have to answer more questions this Thursday at Darlington Raceway, where new asphalt and 200-plus mph speeds promises to make for an exciting race Saturday night. (There are reports, curiously, that a number of hotels in the Darlington-Florence area have large blocks of rooms still available; that market is one of NASCAR’s smallest, and hotel rooms are typically at a premium.)
Earnhardt and Busch can’t afford to let Richmond carry over, because they’re both in the hunt for this year’s championship, which neither has won. Busch now leads the Sprint standings; Earnhardt is third, 104 points down.
“It’s great to be back on top of the point standings,” Busch says. “We were there earlier this year and fell back. We’ve had some great runs; we’ve had some good cars. And we’ve capitalized most of this year.
“At Darlington, with the new paving job, hopefully we can have a great run out there to keep our momentum going.”
Busch didn’t dodge the Richmond controversy, when he banged into Earnhardt’s door in a side-by-side battle for the lead.
“Dale and I race each other at the top level of NASCAR, and we know it was a racing incident—racing hard—and not really giving each other much room,” Busch says.
So is that Childress Vineyards champagne or fizzy Jack Black that Clint Bowyer and his guys are celebrating with Saturday night at Richmond?
(Photo Credit: Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR)
“That’s a product of Richmond; that’s a product of the car-of-tomorrow and the hard racing it provides for us.”
Leaving the track Saturday night “wasn’t too bad,” Busch said. “We were going from the infield to the motorhome and there wasn’t anything.
“Then going from the motorhome to the helipad, there were just a couple fans yelling derogatory comments. It’s nothing new to me anyway; I’m used to it.
“I told them ‘Grow up. That’s racing.’
“We’re racing hard, and there’s a lot worst in this world than someone getting spun out in a race.”
Of course Dale Earnhardt Sr. could easily relate to Busch’s situation, because the hard-charging Earnhardt drew more than his share of boos for hard driving in his career.
“It’s been a lot of great race drivers over the years,” Busch says. “I don’t know about Richard or Lee Petty having it, but I know Dale Earnhardt Sr. was one of those guys, and Rusty Wallace was one of those guys, Darrell Waltrip was one of those guys.
“To me it’s nothing new to this sport.
“Jeff Gordon is one of those guys who gets booed a lot, and Jimmie Johnson as well.
“Driver intros? You don’t pay attention in driver intros. You go out there, you get introduced, you put your sponsor’s name-plate on your chest and stick it out there and you keep your heads held high, stay proud and go out there, do your job and let your racing do your talking.”
So, any second thoughts, any second-guessing? “Would there have been a chance to do something differently? Yeah, there’s plenty of things I could have done differently,” Busch said with a grin. “I could be on a beach in South Carolina; I could be on a lake in North Carolina; I could have been home in Las Vegas.
“We probably could have given each other a little more room. I probably could have dove further to the bottom; Junior probably could have run somewhat similar to the line he had been running on the previous run.
“But he was trying to find something that would work better for his car so he could get away from me, and we just made contact.
“Unfortunately, he got the worst brunt of it.
“I know what my status is in the garage with the drivers. I know what my status is with the fans. Obviously it’s a lot worse with the fans than it is in the garage.
“For me, it was a tough scenario to go through last year (the Kansas run-in with Earnhardt that took Busch out of the title chase). I hate it for my guys that I had with me working on the team last year (ironically the same guys who are working with Earnhardt at Rick Hendrick’s this season). We were doing so well, and I think we’d finished in the top-five in every (chase) race up to that point. We were running sixth or seventh (at Kansas) when we got wrecked.
“But that had nothing to do with this past weekend’s incident. That was just a product of hard racing on a Saturday night.
“Last year is last year. That’s in the past and behind me. I’m focused more on what’s going on this year with my new team. Joe Gibbs signed me on to go out there and win races, and that’s what I was trying to do.
“I hope we can talk about it and put it behind us. I’ve reached out to Junior. I called him earlier this morning (Monday) and got his voice mail. Hopefully we’ll either see each other in the garage here or he’ll get back to me later….maybe even tonight: It’s Cinco de Mayo, so maybe we’ll go party it up a little bit.
“Basically we would just talk it over a little and see what his feelings are and what his outlook on the whole deal is.
“He’s grown up knowing one of the best in the sport, and so I’m sure he has a lot of knowledge that he can relay to me, so I would like to listen.
“Dale Jr. and I were both driving extremely hard, and we both were getting into the corner probably deeper than we had been all day, because our brakes were cool, our tires were cool.
“The first couple laps after the restart Junior barreled it off into the corner really far, and he kind of shoved up the track. He was probably overdriving just as much as I was…if we were both at all anyway.
“The capabilities of the car are what you’ve got at that given point, and you have to learn what those are…and you’ve got to take it to that extreme.
“Both of us were doing that. And there’s really no etiquette for racing each other; you just try to give as much room as you possibly can, and you’re trying to take up the room that your car needs in order to make it go through the corner the fastest.
“For me, I felt I was getting into the corners too low and then shoving up in the center and not getting a good enough drive-off. When you arc it into the corner a little bit more, then you can get it through the center better, and then get a straighter drive-up off. I think Junior was trying to either ‘diamond’ the corner or whatever.
“End result was we made contact.
“Hopefully the past is the past now, and we can move on to the test session here at Charlotte and then get on into Darlington and have a good race there and race everybody the same way we have all year long.”
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