Junior's 'stupid move' puts Busch in deep Chase hole

KANSAS CITY, Kan. -- First, Dale Earnhardt Jr. booted Kyle Busch out of a job. On Sunday, the future Hendrick Motorsports driver booted the current one out of Sunday's event at Kansas Speedway, and into a deep hole in the Chase for the Nextel Cup.

Lap-by-Lap

Kyle Busch is hard into the wall in Turn 3 after Dale Earnhardt Jr. hits him from behind, lifting the 5's rear tires off the track.

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Earnhardt Jr. rammed into the back of the younger Busch on Lap 28 of the LifeLock 400, spinning the No. 5 car around and into the outside wall. It was a bitter finish for Busch, who had recorded top-five results in the first two Chase events, and fell from a close fifth to a distant eighth with seven events remaining in NASCAR's playoff. Even worse, Busch was running eighth at the time of the contact, and had moved up to third in the championship standings before everything suddenly went sideways.

"I just stayed in my lane to try and let him go on the outside because I knew he was going to have a run in the corner, and I got run into the back of and spun out down the straightaway for absolutely no reason," Busch said. "It was a stupid move on his part. Obviously, I'm sure these guys he's going to be working with next year don't really appreciate this, because they've got a championship they can win this year and he doesn't. I don't know what he was thinking, really, or what the problem was. It's very, very unfortunate."

Earnhardt will join Hendrick next season, driving for a No. 88 team that will contain many members of Busch's current outfit. In order to make room for Earnhardt and fit under NASCAR's impending four-car cap, team owner Rick Hendrick had to let one of his drivers go. That turned out to be Busch, who was released from his contract and signed with Joe Gibbs Racing for next season.

Earnhardt accepted full responsibility. "We put the No. 5 car out," he said. "That was an accident. I want to apologize to his fans and their team and Kyle. That was a bad mistake on my part."

But Busch clearly wasn't happy. His crewmen dashed between the No. 5 car's garage stall and team transporter, retrieving replacement sheet metal from the truck's upper storage bay. Mechanics, knowing that every minute lost would mean valuable championship points lost, scrambled through toolboxes and rushed to weld new parts onto the crumpled front end of the car. Busch finally returned to the racetrack 45 laps down.

It was a costly delay. Thanks to a fourth-place finish in the Chase opener at New Hampshire and a fifth-place result last week at Dover, Busch came to Kansas fourth in the Chase standings, but only 10 points behind leader Jeff Gordon. Busch finished 41st on Sunday, 47 laps off the pace, and now trails new Chase leader Jimmie Johnson by 136 points.

There is hope -- Johnson, the reigning champ, was 165 points out after this race last year, and still came back to win. What are Busch's chances now? "Who cares," he said. "It's three [races] in right now. We still have seven more to go. We are going to have to make it up. We had a top-three car [Sunday], but that's not the point. We aren't going to get a top-three finish."

Earnhardt, who did not qualify for the season-ending Chase, was running his usual high lane and thought Busch was going to give him the bottom to get by. He guessed wrong, and the front end of the No. 8 car rammed underneath the rear of the No. 5, spinning it into the wall.

"I just run into the back of him," Earnhardt said. "We were coming off the corner, and I was running the high side. I thought for a second there that he was going to give me the bottom. A lot of guys will still run the bottom down the straightaway if they know you're running the top. For a second there, it looked like he was. And then he just moved up and I got into him. I should have been able to get out of the car, and I was screaming as I was going by for him to save it, but he couldn't gather it up. It was my fault."

Now Busch, who fell into a 146-point hole that he never recovered from after crashing in last year's Chase opener, faces another long climb in his final campaign with the Hendrick team. He left Kansas still wondering why his successor inadvertently took him out.

"I left a lane open for him on the outside, because I knew he was going to have a good run coming off the corner," Busch said. "He ran me over for no reason whatsoever. Just an unfortunate circumstance, and I am sure these guys aren't very appreciative of the fact that the guy who is going to be racing for them next year just dumped their car that has a great shot at winning the championship where he doesn't. It's unfortunate for them and myself and everyone on this team."