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NASCAR Cup Daytona 500
Jimmie Johnson apologizes after turning Kyle Busch in Duel race
Another race at Daytona Speedweeks and Jimmie Johnson is engulfed in another controversy.
Jim Utter
Edited: Feb 15, 2019, 2:26 AM
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This time, Johnson was involved in an incident on the track in Thursday night’s first Daytona 500 qualifying race, making contact with Kyle Busch while the duo were racing three-wide with Tyler Reddick.
Contact from Johnson sent Busch’s No. 18 Toyota into a spin. The damage left Busch one lap down and he limped home to an 18th-place finish.
Johnson immediately asked his spotter to relay an apology to Busch, but Busch would hear none of it.
“Tell him (Johnson) I don’t want to (expletive) hear it – that’s twice he has done the same thing in two races,” Busch said over his team radio.
While attempting a pass on then-leader Paul Menard in Sunday’s Clash exhibition race, Johnson and Menard made contact triggering a 17-car wreck. Johnson went on to win the race.
Johnson was adamant following Thursday’s race that he made a mistake and took full responsibility.
“I just got it wrong. Clearly. We got three-wide and I just kind of misjudged that situation in being three-wide and trying to tuck in behind Kyle,” he said. “Unfortunately, just turned him around.
“Apologies to he and his team and I know that is not what they wanted with their 500 car, but I just got it wrong there.
“I firmly believe The Clash was a racing incident. This one was a mistake on my behalf and everybody makes mistakes.”
Menard and Johnson cleared the air over their incident on Wednesday with Menard insisting he knew the wreck was not intentional.
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