Jeff Burton takes blame for wrecking Kyle Busch, sees another shot at victory slip away
Jeff Burton gets into Kyle Busch, sending him for a spin at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. // Jeff Velte, NASCAR Illustrated
LOUDON, N.H. – Jeff Burton confronted Kyle Busch on pit road at Charlotte Motor Speedway last month, angry over a late move he felt was too aggressive.
Burton might have expected a similar reaction from Kyle Busch Sunday after Burton got loose and slid into Busch with 12 laps left in the Lenox Industrial Tools 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
Busch didn’t confront Burton, but Burton would have understood if he had.
“I screwed up,” Burton said. “Kyle got real loose off [Turn] 2 and I drove underneath him and I just underestimated the amount of grip that we had and I got into him. … It was me getting into Kyle. Kyle didn’t do anything wrong.”
The only driver who didn’t come in to pit with 18 laps remaining, Burton, as the leader, was trying to hold off the field despite having older tires than everyone else. He got passed by Jimmie Johnson for the lead on the restart and, two laps later, slid into Busch while battling for third.
Burton, who screamed at Busch on pit road following the Coca-Cola 600 after contact with Busch cut Burton’s tire late in the race, took total blame for the incident Sunday. Busch finished 11th while Burton finished 12th.
“I got wrecked,” Busch said. “[It was] a product of good, hard racing there at the end of the race. A guy on no tires [was] trying to make it all with what he’s got and we screwed up. We didn’t have the right front underneath the car there at the end and I washed up the track.
“In the previous corner, Kurt [Busch] got by me. [I] went down into Turn 3 and Burton got loose underneath me and we wrecked. That’s all there is to it.”
Riding a 57-race winless streak going into the race, Burton saw another chance for a win slip away. He remained eighth in points and has a 142-point cushion on 13th with nine races left before the Chase For The Sprint Cup field is set.
“If we aren’t disappointed with that, something is wrong with us,” Burton said. “I’m not discouraged about it, but I am disappointed. I hate that Kyle and I got together there at the end.
“I know we had a little history together and honestly that had nothing to do with that, although nobody will ever believe that. I just screwed up. He didn’t do a thing wrong and that is 100 percent on me. He is probably not going to want to talk about it and I don’t blame him, I would be mad if I was him.”
As the leader, Burton and crew chief Todd Berrier chose to stay out on the late restart. Everyone else took at least two tires and several drivers took four.
“We make our calls together,” Burton said. “Whatever the call is, I support it 100 percent. I didn’t know what the right thing to do was. I didn’t have a clue what the right thing to do was.
“Todd made the call, but we made the call together because he makes the calls and I support him 100 percent. I’m not disappointed in the calls at all. At the end of the day, in retrospect, it wasn’t the right thing to do, but that is real easy to say right now.”
Burton has led 10 of the 17 races this year and had five top-10 finishes in the seven races prior to New Hampshire.
He had a top-10 run at Infineon Raceway last week ruined when he got tapped by Marcos Ambrose in the final laps.
Now another late wreck cost Burton several spots.
“That’s pretty much our year right there,” Burton said. “Unfortunately, we didn’t make the right decision there on the pit stop. When you’re leading, it’s a really tough decision. … It’s a very hard call to make.
“Obviously we didn’t make the right call but it wasn’t because of a lack of effort. All we needed was to drag a couple of people with us [to stay out] and we would have been fine. Nobody came with us.”
