Kyle Busch was the second-fastest driver through the opening 17 minutes of NASCAR Cup Series Group 1 practice for Sunday’s Iowa Corn 350 Powered by Ethanol at Iowa Speedway, but moments later, things spiraled out of control for the two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion.
Heading into Turns 1 and 2 on his 18th lap of the practice session, Busch’s car wiggled, and as he attempted to wrangle the car, the car shot straight to the right. Busch would pound the outside wall incredibly hard with the right front of his No. 8 Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet.
Here is a video of Busch’s practice crash from the TruTV live broadcast.
Here is the insanely hard crash that Kyle Busch just sustained in #NASCAR Cup Series practice at Iowa Speedway moments ago: pic.twitter.com/Ig3Suo8WFO
— Toby Christie (@Toby_Christie) August 2, 2025
Fortunately, Busch was able to walk away from the massive impact and was checked and released from the infield care center following the hard crash. After walking from the infield care center, Busch explained what happened in the crash from his point of view.
The 63-time NASCAR Cup Series race winner said that his car initially had some chatter in the rear wheels, but after crew chief Randall Burnett made some changes, Busch gained confidence in his race car. He would rocket toward the top of the speed charts, but then his confidence was crushed.
“[We were] just continuing to make changes and trying to make improvements to the rear grip and getting the rear of the car more secure everywhere around the corner. Literally anywhere that I would push a little bit harder, I would feel rear [tires] chatter,” Busch said in an interview on TruTV. “Felt really good about the changes that we made, there. Came out of Turn 4 really hot and heavy and hard on it, and went off into Turn 1 with too much trust and chattered the right rear, and then overcorrected it and smacked the fence. Just not really sure how to find more trust, or when you feel something good in one corner, it’s not there in the next.”
With the incredible amount of damage sustained, Busch and his No. 8 team will certainly have to move to a backup car and will be unable to turn a qualifying lap in Saturday’s qualifying session. As a result, Busch will have to start from the rear in Sunday’s race in an untested backup car.
Busch knows how hard it is for race teams to convert the Next Gen backup cars into a race ready car, and he feels for his No. 8 team due to the work that is in store for them the remainder of the afternoon and on Sunday morning.
“Obviously, it’s tough for the guys, hate it for the guys, everybody at RCR, especially the No. 8 crew, I’m sure we’ll rely on some of the No. 3 car guys to prepare the backup car overnight and get us into the race tomorrow,” Busch stated. “Obviously, we had decent speed, just trying to work on up to it and try to get consistently better and better with laps, so that’ll be about the same thing we have to tomorrow. I was probably built up to about 75 to 80 percent trust, now I’m down to zero. So I’ll have to try to build that up lap by lap.”
Busch comes into this race riding a losing streak of 79 races, which is the longest winless drought of his 736-race NASCAR Cup Series career.
