If it weren’t for bad luck, Kyle Busch would…well you know the rest

Kyle Busch just can’t catch a break. This season he does have a win, but he also has a DQ as the result of an inspection failure and he’s finished outside the top 20 in six of the last seven races.

And while at the Mall of America last week, he even had to take his family and flee from a shooting.

So, to say the two-time champion is undergoing a streak of bad luck is putting it mildly.

Unfortunately, that seemed to follow him to Michigan International Speedway Sunday. Busch and his Joe Gibbs Racing team had been fast all weekend, leading practice and starting third.

It all came apart on lap 25, however. The race had been delayed for nearly 90 minutes by a thunderstorm and NASCAR called a competition caution on lap 20. On the restart, JJ Yeley got loose came up the track and in front of Michael McDowell who got into Austin Cindric sending Cindric’s Ford nose first into the outside wall. In total 8 cars were collected including those for drivers Aric Almirola, Harrison Burton, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., David Gilliland. Busch two was an innocent victim. His was one of six cars who were out of the race.

“Just chaos ensued on the restart there and I don’t know what started it,” Busch said. “But the 10 (Aric Almirola) got spun in front of me and then I got wedged between him and the wall. When you get back there, things happen on restarts especially when you have guys that stayed out and don’t have tires versus those that have four tires. Was not really in a hurry and knew we were coming to stage points in another 40 laps or so and it was going to be a long run to get there and then we all just crashed.”

Busch was scored 36 out of the 37-car field. It was his eighth straight finish outside of the top 10, extending it to the longest streak of his career.

“Just was trying to bide my time and knew we weren’t necessarily going to need to be in a hurry there to get points at the end of that stage,” he said. “It was going to be a 40-lap run and it was going to be plenty of time to get back up there because we had a really fast car – had a really fast Interstate Batteries Camry, it was looking really good for the day and obviously not a good result. Just got squeezed between the 10 (Aric Almirola) spinning and myself and the fence. Just don’t get it man, just can’t buy a break right now.”

As for his frustration level:

“One out of 10, infinity.”

 

 

Greg Engle