"I don't know what position they were racing for, but they were racing very hard for it," Busch said. "They were just side‑by‑side. When that happens, there's just nowhere for me to go. There's no clean air. One was on the bottom. I think there was a middle lane kind of open, two on the top. I got by Newman, I got plugged up off of two, lost my momentum. Newman came to the bottom. We were three‑wide with lap cars in the backstretch. I couldn't turn off 3 to the bottom like I would have if he wasn't there. I don't think Stenhouse knew that. Stenhouse kind of right reared me, got me steering up the race track towards the wall. That killed my rear tires for the next two laps. I was just sliding for dear life."
Pays to have friends: Larson thanks Stenhouse Jr., Newman for help
It pays to have friends.
At least that's what Kyle Larson said after getting tangled up with Kyle Busch on the last lap of the Overton's 400 at Chicagoland Speedway. Although the driver of the No. 42 ultimately finished runner-up to the 'Candy Man' for the eighth time in his career, Larson had some help racing down Busch in the final moments to give fans quite a show.
MORE: Watch the best finish of the year | Busch talks thrilling finish
And he owes two specific drivers an extra 'thank you' in the garage next week.
"I felt like (Ricky) Stenhouse Jr. and (Ryan) Newman did a good job of holding him up for me and I was very thankful of that," Larson said. "So, first off, thanks to those two. And yeah, it just broke his momentum up enough for the last three laps there for him to change up what he was doing and I was able to just keep committing to the wall and I got that run on him. The traffic really played in my favor there.”
Battling traffic is something Busch says is just part of racing, something you can't control. However, he did notice that some drivers were 'more gracious' than others down the stretch at the 1.5-mile track.
Were those 'others' Stenhouse Jr. and Newman? Well, Busch did explain after the race that those two specific drivers didn't make keeping the lead any easier.