Incident sent 'Rowdy' to garage early and he couldn't recover
TALLADEGA, Ala. -- Kyle Busch was enjoying one of his best efforts ever in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, with five consecutive top-10 finishes and a second-place position in the points standings.
Then came Talladega, and the wreck, and the mad scramble to repair a car that looked beyond repair.
Busch was able to return to Sunday's GEICO 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race, but the 40th place finish proved too damaging to overcome.
Seemingly headed for the Eliminator Round of the Chase, Busch instead now joins six-time champion Jimmie Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kasey Kahne as those who are no longer in contention for the series title.
"We were riding around back, Kyle was just playing it conservative … they wrecked in front of us, we got slowed up and the guys in back didn't," said crew chief Dave Rogers.
"It's part of speedway racing; you know someone is going to wreck out, you just hope it's not you."
Busch, whose car was nicked only slightly in a six-car incident on Lap 60 when Jamie McMurray appeared to have a tire go down, wasn't nearly as fortunate on Lap 103.
Contact between Aric Almirola and J.J. Yeley on the backstretch started a chain reaction incident that swept up Tony Stewart, Casey Mears, AJ Allmendinger, Busch, Terry Labonte, Alex Bowman, Clint Bowyer, Austin Dillon and Brian Vickers.
Busch and Almirola were the only two to spend an extensive amount of time in the garage, but both eventually made it back on the track.
While Busch did gain three spots after his car was repaired -- he finished ahead of Michael McDowell, Yeley and Bowman -- he was four points behind Kahne and seven behind Jeff Gordon, who was eighth in the standings before the Eliminator Round reset.
"It was a tough day for the crew but we'll gather ourselves back up tomorrow and we’ll race them hard at Martinsville," Rogers said. "We'll try to advance in points and get to fifth, do the best we can the rest of the year."
Busch, 29, was making his seventh Chase appearance. He finished a career-best fourth in the championship battle a year ago.
He qualified for the Chase thanks to a win earlier this season at Auto Club Speedway, and advanced out of the first three-race round with finishes of seventh, eighth and 10th at Chicagoland, Loudon and Dover, respectively.
A third-place finish at Kansas and fifth-place run at Charlotte in the Contender round left him second in points heading into Sunday's race.
Busch did not comment publicly after the race.
"I can't praise him enough," Rogers said of his driver. "He's really stepped up to be a great leader of this race team in the Chase.
"We've had a couple of things go against us -- getting the nose knocked off at Loudon (and) today, and Kyle's done a really good job of biting his lip and just backing the race team to let us do our job.
"I can't say enough good about him. I'm really proud of him. It's been a lot of fun working with him and we're not done yet."
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