The Round of 12 didn’t start off the way Kyle Busch and Richard Childress Racing were envisioning.
The No. 8’s AutoTrader EchoPark Automotive 400 came to an end on Lap 74, when he lost control in Turns 1 and 2 slid into the wall.
“I have no idea,” Busch told NBC Sports at the infield care center of what happened to cause the spin. “It felt really good when we came off of pit road after that green-flag stop.
“The car had good grip in it. We had those couple of yellows back-to-back and we restarted on the outside. I felt like I had a flat right front (tire) and I was going to come to pit road. I second-guessed it and said ‘I don’t think so, man. It’s just something is wrong, something isn’t right, but it’s not a flat’.
“And just all on its own, just turned into the bottom of the race track in turn one and it just swapped ends on me. That’s the rear, not the front, not having grip. I just don’t know.”
Busch first encountered an issue as he slid up out of the groove a few laps prior, but regrouped and was turning lap times similar to the leaders. It was just a few laps later that he was reversing around the entire track to pit road, where the No. 8 team eventually decided to retire the car for the day.
“I felt like our car was for sure a top-five or top-10 car today. That right there, I just said it two laps before that – I got up on the high-side and was like, you know what, I just need to stop and just run the bottom, make laps here, just finish the stage and it swaps ends on me.”
Texas was the two-time champion’s second straight DNF as well as the sixth time he has failed to finish this season. Busch had finishes of 11th at Darlington, seventh at Kansas and 20th at Bristol to open up the playoffs, good enough to get him past the Round of 16, but he knows more is required if they want to advance past the Round of 12.
“I’m a complete letdown to my team right now, not being able to get the results that we need. Every time I try, we crash.”
Busch entered Texas sixth in the playoff standings, five points above the cutline, but will head to Talladega Superspeedway next weekend, a track where he won earlier this season snapping a decade-plus superspeedway winless streak.
But as per usual at ‘Dega, unpredictability and luck are two big variables.
“Not very good,” Busch said of his chances next weekend. “But we’re going to go there and fight as good as we can and run hard. RCR has had a strong (superspeedway) program, so that’s all we can do.”