Got another driver to add to his hate list apparently.
Kyle Busch has never been too worried about making friends in the NASCAR Cup Series garage. From Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski to Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Carson Hocevar, the driver of the #8 car for Richard Childress Racing has found himself in plenty of feuds over his two decades-plus career in the Cup Series.
Of course Busch (and RCR as a whole) has been struggling these past couple years, and it’s hard to develop any heated rivalries when you’re running two laps down in 25th. But the team has been working hard at trying to get things turned around, and last week RCR made a crew chief change on the #8 car that already seems to be paying off.
This weekend at Texas Motor Speedway, Busch managed to qualify 6th, his best starting position since he won the pole for the season-opening Daytona 500. And he actually managed to run well most of the day, spending the majority of the Würth 400 inside the top 10.
But things went south with just two laps to go, with Busch running 11th and John Hunter Nemechek running just behind him in 12th in the #42 car for Legacy Motorsports.
Now, both drivers have differing views on who’s at fault, but it started when Busch attempted to pull in front of Nemechek on the backstretch. The #8 car wasn’t clear of the front bumper of the 42, and ended up getting into the outside wall.
Busch clearly wasn’t happy with Nemechek, and as they drove into turn 3 appeared to intentionally get into his door and send the #42 car spinning.
Like I said, the two drivers didn’t agree what happened during the first incident on the backstretch. Afterwards, Nemechek took to social media with some harsh words for Busch, who he felt screwed up by trying to pull in front of him when he wasn’t clear:
Busch, on the other hand, blamed Nemechek for (at least according to Kyle) running too far off the outside wall and messing up his line:
He didn’t, however, address what appeared to be his intentional wrecking of Nemechek in turn 3. So will NASCAR address it on Tuesday when the penalty report comes out?
There’s certainly precedent for NASCAR to suspend drivers for intentionally wrecking another car. Back in 2023, Chase Elliott was suspended for one race after wrecking Denny Hamlin during the Coca-Cola 600. And in 2022, Bubba Wallace was suspended for intentionally hooking Kyle Larson in the right rear at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
But both of those incidents involved a driver hooking another car in the right rear on a 1.5 mile speedway, a dangerous move that sends them head-on into the outside wall at high speeds and something NASCAR has taken a firm stance on. That wasn’t what happened here, where Busch appeared to turn right into Nemechek’s driver’s side door. And NASCAR has, in recent years, seemingly drawn a distinction between right hooking a guy on a 1.5 mile track and other intentional wrecks.
Last year at the Circuit of the Americas road course, Austin Cindric was penalized 50 points for intentionally wrecking the #10 car of Ty Dillon. Now, in this case Cindric did right hook Dillon, but NASCAR said that because it was at a road course and not a speedway, and thus at lower speeds, it wasn’t worthy of a suspension. They also cited the fact that the incident didn’t bring out a caution flag, just like yesterday’s wreck didn’t cause a caution.
There are obviously similarities to both scenarios in Busch’s case: It was at a speedway and not a lower-speed road course or short track, but it wasn’t a right hook and it didn’t cause a caution.
So what will NASCAR do here? Do they suspend Busch for wrecking Nemechek, or do they simply fine him and penalize him some points? Or do they do nothing at all?
There’s no doubt that they’ll be looking at the SMT data to determine whether it was, as it appeared to be, an intentional wreck. And then they’ll have to decide whether it’s worthy of a penalty, and if so, what that should be.
If Busch is suspended, he would miss next weekend’s race at Watkins Glen, which would all but bring to an end his hopes of making the Chase this year. And taking away points would likely do the same, given how much Busch and RCR have struggled this year.
I tend to think that IF NASCAR decides to penalize Busch, it will be a points penalty and not a suspension in this case because it didn’t send Nemechek head-on into the outside wall. But I guess we’ll have to wait until Tuesday to find out for sure.
Either way, it would probably be smart for Nemechek to keep his distance from Busch on the track for a little while.
