FORT WORTH, Texas — As the O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 at Texas Motor Speedway drew to a close on Sunday afternoon, it looked like Kyle Busch was cruising to the third triple weekend sweep of his career. But then his car lost handling and while trying to make up for lost ground, Busch made contact with the wall ending his shot at victory.
After climbing from his car, Busch took full responsibility for what turned into a 10th-place finish.
“I was just trying to keep the lap time going. Keep the speed in it. And it just busted loose on me and I had to catch it,” Busch explained. “Then once I did that I got back in dirty air and I was trying to race back up toward the front with those guys. Should have just been more patient and just waited for the pit cycles to come up and pass them on pit road. But I got impatient and smacked the fence.”
Although it would have been easy to be upset that he didn’t personally accomplish the sweep, Busch was more upset for the guys who turn the wrenches on his No. 18 Toyota Camry.
“I hate it for my guys,” Busch anguished. “I ruined their day more than probably my day. They had a fast car and deserved to win.”
Busch did have a fast car, as he led a race-high 66 laps and in the waning laps it looked like he had the car that it was going to take to win, but just made some mistakes.
When pressed about the frustration of not polishing off the triple sweep, Busch got a little heated. Obviously the sting of just missing out on accomplishing something yet again that nobody other than him has accomplished in the history of NASCAR was painful.
“What do you expect? I mean, yeah. Should have won. Didn’t,” Busch stated sharply. “It’s nothing new though. I’ve only ever won two triples, not fucking 12.”
Although the finish isn’t what Busch was hoping for, and it was his worst finish of the season, he still was able to keep his incredible streak of finishing inside the top-10 in every Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race this season alive. Through seven starts, Busch has a nearly unfathomable average finish of 3.7 in the top division of NASCAR racing for 2019.
Busch will look to return to victory lane at Bristol Motor Speedway, which is place that he has won at seven times over the course of his career.
