Analysis

NASCAR Cup

Kyle Busch: Texas roller coaster

Kyle Busch had an up and down day this past Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway - from tire issues to a speeding ticket on pit road - but neither he nor the Joe Gibbs Racing team gave up the fight.

Edited: Nov 5, 2013, 9:46 AM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

Kyle Busch, Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota

FORT WORTH, Tex. - Kyle Busch had an up-and-down day at Texas that ended near the middle of the pack.

Busch started fifth but caused the second caution of the race when he brushed the wall on Lap 58. Persistent quick work by his No. 18 crew, and some all-out driving by Busch, got the car as far forward as second in the running order before a pit-road speeding penalty with 35 laps left knocked him back to 13th at the finish.

"We had a tire problem early," said crew chief Dave Rogers, "and the guys did a great job of fixing the race car. That wasn't a bad wreck, but it was bad enough where it could have ruined our day, and they all jumped in there and got the side pulled back out, got it away from the tires and the car still had speed in it.

"Kyle did a phenomenal job of keeping us in the game and just keep chipping there. Kyle thought we had another tire going down, we short-pitted (on Lap 237) and it ended up working out in our favor strategy-wise and gained a lot of track position."

But the strategy came undone with the speeding penalty.

"Things were looking pretty good there, but like I told Kyle after the race -- on a team, everybody is giving 100 percent, and when everybody is giving 100 percent sometime they give 100.1 and that .1 gets you in trouble. Kyle feels terrible today because he sped on pit road late in the race, but this is a team and we've got his back.

"He was giving us all he had to give us the best finish possible, and we took a little bit more than what was there. That's OK -- we'll go to Phoenix and Homestead and race them."

By Reid Spencer - NASCAR Wire Service

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article Gordon's title hopes take hit at TMS

Next article Penske Racing: Tough in Texas

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

Spy shots of 2027 NASCAR Ford Mustang testing at Charlotte, but what's different?

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Charlotte II

40 min

Spy shots of 2027 NASCAR Ford Mustang testing at Charlotte, but what's different?

Five key takeaways from F1's big African Grand Prix reveal in Rwanda

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1 1 h

Five key takeaways from F1's big African Grand Prix reveal in Rwanda

Niels Koolen makes switch to Abel Motorsports ahead of 2027 Indy NXT campaign

Indy NXT

IndL Indy NXT 2 h

Niels Koolen makes switch to Abel Motorsports ahead of 2027 Indy NXT campaign

GT World Challenge Portimao: All you need to know about season finale featuring Max Verstappen

GT World Challenge Europe Endurance

WCEE GT World Challenge Europe Endurance 3 h

GT World Challenge Portimao: All you need to know about season finale featuring Max Verstappen

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts