Kurt Busch wishing for Talladega do-over after runner-up result

TALLADEGA, Ala. -- Kurt Busch occupied some prime real estate in Sunday's final laps at Talladega Superspeedway, riding within sight of leader Joey Logano with his Stewart-Haas Racing teammate Kevin Harvick in close proximity. The hopes turned into regrets late in the GEICO 500, with Busch's No. 41 Ford finishing as the runner-up just .127 seconds behind Logano's Team Penske entry. Busch tucked in behind Logano for most of the final lap, failing to form a tandem charge with Harvick, who was left to scrap with Chase Elliott and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. for the remaining spots among the top five. RELATED: Race results | At-track photos from Talladega Busch's second-place result was his best of the season in the Monster Energy Series, but he lamented being "outfoxed" for the final trip around the 2.66-mile track. "It takes two cars to try to break through the leader. I'm happy that a Ford won. It wasn't the right one," Busch said. "Kevin was in good position. I was going to roll with him in any direction that I could. We just got broken up by Stenhouse. "Man, it's just so close. You wish you could go over and do it again. I feel like I left that one out on the table." RELATED: Race winners from 2018 | All of Kurt Busch's Monster Energy Series wins Harvick and Busch were among the fastest Ford drivers for the duration of the weekend; they shared the front row after Saturday's Busch Pole qualifying, with Harvick's No. 4 leading their 1-2 start. Each spent time at the front Sunday, but were unable to crack the lead stranglehold of Logano, who paced the final 42 laps. "The 41 pulled out sooner than I thought he would there," Harvick said, "and we wound up getting hung out." Busch's day was an eventful one even before Stage 1 transitioned into full churn. Busch was tagged with a Lap 13 speeding penalty on the first exchange of pit stops. That setback was preceded by a team communications issue before the green flag, forcing the No. 41 team to scramble to replace the radio. Busch could hear the team, but the team could not hear him. Crew members brought an additional helmet and steering wheel to the car in an effort to remedy the problem, but the stop-gap solution was switching to the No. 4 team's reserve radio channel. "Just some weird deal," said Billy Scott, Busch's crew chief. "They changed out pretty much all the equipment in there and it still had a problem. It came down to it being a radio channel of some sort, so we ended up borrowing a radio for the 4 and went to their backup channel and that's what we used. It was OK then, so kind of a weird deal. We'll have to figure that out." The quick change left for some anxious moments for the No. 41 team, which sat on pit road for a handful of pace laps before hurrying back to its front-row starting berth. "There's only so many parts and pieces to change, right?" Scott said. "It got down to the last one, still fixed it. So I figure we had time to get it all swapped out."