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FORT WORTH, Texas — An issue early in Friday’s opening NASCAR Sprint Cup Series practice sent Kyle Busch to the garage and his team to the hauler to unload the backup No. 18 Toyota.
The defending Sprint Cup Series champion made contact with the outside wall on his first lap around the 1.5-mile Texas Motor Speedway layout. Damage to the right front of the Joe Gibbs Racing entry was significant.
It took approximately one hour for the backup entry to be sufficiently prepped. Busch quickly posted the 10th-fastest lap when he was finally able to return to the track.
“We got into turn three and the car felt great, loaded up really good, got back to the throttle and then got to the bumps that are over there in (Turns) 3 and 4,” Busch said afterward.
The car “felt like it bottomed out a little bit,” he said, “and kind of got me up the track and then from there the whole car just kind of came out of the track and I got loose and couldn’t get it checked up or slowed down before it slapped the wall.
“Speeds are really high here at Texas and when you lose that grip, typically it happens in a hurry and (it) just kind of got away from me there. I wish that I would have had maybe taken it a little easy, but I really wasn’t even trying that hard to be honest with you. Just kind of a shock that that happened.”
Because the incident took place prior to qualifying, Busch won’t be required to drop to the rear of the field prior to the start of Sunday’s AAA Texas 500 (2 p.m. ET, NBC/NBC Sports App, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
“I don’t think I have ever crashed on the first lap of getting out there on the race track before,” he said. “We’ve right-sided cars before here or there and I always had a running joke with one of our guys at the body shop that comes to the race track on Sundays … anytime he has to put a right side wrap on a car, it meant good things. Going to a backup car, I don’t think it is going to hurt us any.”
By the end of practice, he had slipped to 22nd in the rundown.
He’s a two-time winner at Texas in the Sprint Cup Series, and won here earlier this year. He’s finished no worse than fourth in his last four Texas starts, and six of his last seven.
“Didn’t even get a lap on that thing but all in all I know that I’ve got a great group of guys that will dig in as deep as they need to in order to make sure we do everything that we can to prepare it to get ourselves back to where we need to be for being competitive here this weekend,” he said.
The incident during practice wasn’t the only issue for the No. 18 team Friday. After posting the second-fastest time in the opening round of qualifying, Busch and the team returned to the garage after a lower radiator hose came loose after he completed his run.
As a result, he will start 24th Sunday.
Busch is fourth in points, four points ahead of fifth-place Joey Logano (Team Penske). The Texas race is the second of three in the Round of 8, with three positions up for grabs to go to Homestead with a shot at the 2016 championship. Jimmie Johnson (Hendrick Motorsports) locked up one of the Championship 4 spots with his win last weekend at Martinsville Speedway.
Kevin Harvick (Stewart-Haas Racing), teammate Kurt Busch and Carl Edwards (JGR) are also outside the top four entering Sunday’s race.
Johnson, Denny Hamlin (JGR), Matt Kenseth (JGR) and Busch are first through fourth.