With an impressive NASCAR Sprint Cup season thus far, including four wins, with fourteen top-5 and eighteen top-10 finishes, Kyle Busch has won many NASCAR experts over with his signs of increased maturity and level-headedness this season.
Many spectators believed this could be the season that Kyle Busch capitalizes on his strengths in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship.
Many of these sentiments have come into question one week after Busch made contact with the driver of the No. 22 Discount Tire Ford, Brad Keselowski, on lap 188 of the NASCAR Nationwide Series Kansas Lottery 300 at Kansas Speedway.
Busch said he has “yet to wreck a person on purpose,” and accounted for the incident by saying, “I was faster than he was for as tight as I was — and when I got underneath him a little bit there off of Turn 4, I got inside of his wake and got too close to him and it pulled me right into him. Once we touched, he was gone.”
Keselowski didn’t buy into Busch’s perspective of the wreck. After the race he said, “He’s a dirty driver; there’s no other way of putting it. He’s cool with that. I’ve raced him real cool over the last year to try to be respectful to him and trying to repair our relationship. I’ve watched him wreck my trucks, cost me from winning races, put me in the fence at Chicago in the truck race. Nationwide races, he’s been pulling this crap. It’s not going to last. I can tell you that. I feel bad for the guys next to me (pointing to the No. 54 hauler). They’re going to have to fix his (crap).”
Busch has no intentions of apologizing to Keselowski. He told FOXSports.com, “I don’t have Brad Keselowski’s phone number. Don’t need it, don’t want it. He didn’t call me after Watkins Glen.”
Busch continues to hold a grudge against Keselowski after the wreck between the two of them last season at Watkins Glen, which essentially cost Busch a spot in the Chase for the Sprint Cup Championship.
Busch commented on SiriusXM’s NASCAR channel on Friday about the possibility of Brad seeking revenge in one of the remaining Cup races leading up to the Championship. He said, “Probably for Brad being who Brad is, I guess I should be worried because he’s stupid enough to do something, but in all reality, to myself, I don’t know, I guess I had more respect for drivers than that.”
Keselowski clearly has the upper hand and he knows it. Last Sunday, in the drivers’ meeting, Brad asked what the penalty would be for intentionally wrecking another driver. Could it be that Brad was seeking revenge by disturbing Kyle’s psyche during the final six races of the season? Perhaps he asked the question preparing to make his move on the track. Either way, Kyle finished the Hollywood Casino 400 in 34th position and dropped from third in the Chase points standings to fifth, thirty-five points behind leader Matt Kenseth.
Despite the speculation this season that we have seen a new, more mature Kyle Busch who has a better chance than ever to win a NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship, could Busch’s feud with Keselowski be the old Kyle creeping back into the Chase? Could Busch be his own worst enemy? Could the Busch/Keselowski feud cost Busch the Championship?
