NASCAR felt Kyle Busch was not involved in the first overtime incident Sunday night at Nashville Superspeedway, and that’s why he was given his top-five position back.
Ross Chastain spun in Turn 1 off the bumper of Kyle Larson, which sent the Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet toward the outside wall. Chastain led the outside lane on the restart, and Busch was lined up in the row behind him. As Chastain spun, Busch went high to avoid him and bounced off the wall.
Busch slowed to avoid Chastain, who continued to slide with his driver’s side door toward the field. Ty Gibbs ran into Chastain, which sent his car for another spin cycle. As the crash was unfolding, Busch stayed high near the wall.
NASCAR put the No. 8 back in fourth position for the second overtime attempt.
“It’s not so much getting his spot back; his spots weren’t taken away because our rule clearly states that you must maintain a reasonable speed and reasonable speed is for what track conditions [are] at the time,” NASCAR Cup Series managing director Brad Moran told SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. “We don’t want to encourage drivers to stay on the gas and just bang their way through. What he did was he avoided the incident. We deemed him not involved in that incident. He didn’t stop. If he had stopped, he probably would have ended up toward the back of the field.
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“But he was scored in the fourth-place position when that caution came out, and he didn’t get into the No. 1 [Chastain] or the No. 5 [Larson] and made very slight contact with the wall. We would deem that as not being involved in that incident, and that’s why he was able to restart where he was scored.”
Moran said the scoring loop determined the lineup when the field was frozen. Busch did not blend back into the field until after Chastain slid down the racetrack, which, at that point, was when nearly the entire field had passed him.
“It was loop No. 4, and that was the last loop the leaders were scored on,” Moran said. “Really, it comes down to, ‘Do we determine him being involved in that wreck?’ and we did not determine being him involved in the wreck. We determined he avoided being in the wreck.”
Busch’s fortune didn’t last. On the following restart, where he again lined up fourth, he was spun from behind by Chase Elliott coming to the green flag when Larson stacked up the field from the outside of the front row. Busch hit the outside wall, which ended his race.