Kyle Busch rallies from first-lap spin for first top-10 in six races
Kyle Busch's crew repairs the damage after an early wreck. Busch rallied for an eighth-place finish. // Mark Hawkins, NASCAR Illustrated
INDIANAPOLIS – Kyle Busch spun on the first lap of the Brickyard 400 Sunday and had to use track position to work his way back through the field at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Busch wound up eighth, not a bad finish considering the first-lap spin and that his best finish in his last five races was 11th. After the spin, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver was able to get all the way to 18th in the next 14 laps as other drivers had to pit under green to get grass out of their grilles.
Busch cracked the top 10 by lap 60 and spent the rest of the day stalled in the top 10.
“I don’t know what happened there on the opening lap,” Busch said. “I just lost it, I guess. It just went around. I had trouble every restart really trying to get going, especially through 1 and 2.
“All in all, we came back and bounced back solidly. We needed a good run. It’s been a while.”
The spin apparently did not do much damage to his car.
“It didn’t really have any impact on the car, I don’t feel like, minor maybe straightaway speed,” Busch said. “I felt like everything was fine. The car handled all right. We were a little bit tight all day. We kind of got it loose a couple of times and was fast that way, but it was edgy to drive, I didn’t want to wreck the thing.
“We just needed a solid run today. We just need to find speed somewhere else, not having it be so much on the edge.”
Crew chief Dave Rogers said he was really nervous until he saw the car.
“We didn’t tighten it up enough, and it just got away from him,” Rogers said. “The guys hit the nose with a hammer and it popped right back out. So we weren’t that damaged the rest of the race. … We thought we could run a solid top-five but track position means so much.”
The race was the first Cup race for Busch with new spotter Eddie D’Hondt. Busch used D’Hondt for all three races over the weekend as Joe Gibbs Racing parted ways with spotter Jeff Dickerson.
“Things went well,” Busch said. “Eddie was with me for all three races and he did a great job. We’re going to go have some lunch later this week and talk about a couple of things on how he did, how I liked it, and what maybe Dave wants to hear different. But, so far, so good.”
