Did Kyle Busch Spin Out His Truck on Purpose?
All evidence points towards Kyle Busch intentionally spinning himself out on Friday during the NASCAR Truck Series race at Las Vegas Speedway to avoid losing multiple laps.
The two-time Cup Series champion was running second to teammate (and client) John Hunter Nemechek when he picked up a flat left rear but saved the truck from spinning into the Turn 4 outside retaining wall at 180 mph. The work he put into the save was evident by the white gloves he wore on Friday night.
Busch nursed his car to the apron, but the race remained under green flag conditions as he remained on track, at which point Busch slowly spun at the entrance of Turn 2. Busch sat sideways on the apron and NASCAR was forced to throw the caution.
What happened was apparent in the television booth with Austin Dillon and Michael Waltrip serving as analysts alongside play-by-play announcer Vince Welch.
“Yeah, Kyle got a little loose there on the flat,” Dillon said.
“Huh, got away from him on the apron,” Waltrip responded.
“He saved it going pretty fast earlier, didn’t he,” Dillon said back.
Busch only lost a single lap in the exchange and was the recipient of a free pass during the next caution and was eventually able to drive back to second in a Kyle Busch Motorsports 1-2 finish behind Nemechek.
After the race, during his post-race video teleconference, he had no interest in talking about the exchanged when asked about it by FOX Sports.
Kyle Busch wouldn’t explain what happened on his spin so whether he spun to bring out the caution is left open to interpretation. What he said (or didn’t say): pic.twitter.com/E88caYiiwn
(Can you explain what happened when you spun?)
“Nope.”
(What?)
“Nope.”
(So, you’re not going to explain what happened?)
“Nope.”
The price of admitting a deliberate intentional spin to milk a caution is steep.
Here’s the video, from @NBCSports’ @dustinlong, that led to Bubba Wallace being fined and penalized.
More: https://t.co/qtwPWokLHb pic.twitter.com/15QtrX1voE
In November 2019, Bubba Wallace admitted that he spun on purpose to bring out a caution at Texas Motor Speedway. He said he wasn’t worried about it, having learned from similar actions by Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano, because NASCAR had never penalized it.
This time, NASCAR did.
Wallace was fined $50,000 as a result of violating Section 12.1.a (General Procedures), Section 12.8 (NASCAR Member Conduct), Section 12.8.1 (Member Conduct Guidelines) as well as Section 10.8 (In-Race Violations).
Prior to the penalty, Busch said NASCAR couldn’t penalize one without penalizing everyone who is guilty of it.
Here was @kylebusch’s take on intentional yellows and why #nascar needs to be careful with penalizing drivers. pic.twitter.com/2Ea5ICg38m
“We’ve all been guilty of it and we all may need to have that situation arise again, and it may or may not benefit us and it may or may not screw other people,” Busch said.
“I think frankly, the reason we’re still talking about it, is that nothing is being done about it, and y’all want to see something done about it and some drivers don’t care. When people have flat tires and they are spinning out and drawing cautions, you can’t penalize one and then not everybody else. So, they better be careful.”
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