Dear NASCAR: Let it go. Let the stern rhetoric towards Kyle Busch following his response after the Fontana XFINITY race go. It serves no purpose, gets nothing done, and robs the essence of one of the greatest NASCAR drivers of all time. Why flex muscle on what was ultimately a useless race?
Granted, the XFINITY Series is in the midst of a serious crisis regarding competition and ratings. Sure, the Kyle Busch of 2015 was much more preferable than the Kyle Busch of yore, and seeing him so upset and storming off was a bit disheartening. What put him off from fans before Joey Logano came along to take up that mantle was the fact that he was prone to childish outbursts that were very off-putting.
Look at the last lap again. Busch’s tire detonated, sending sheet metal all over the track, which could have posed an immediate danger to oncoming traffic and caused a crash. NASCAR’s so prone to throwing debris cautions, yet they dropped the ball here by letting the green flag stay flying even though the debris was on the race track.
Also, despite the growing headache that is Busch’s XFINITY campaign, he cannot be faulted for wanting to win every race he enters. That’s the heart of a race car driver, and he’s not in the wrong for that. Also, there was the team to think of as well as the sponsors and the guys back at the shop to think about. Saying that NASCAR is fixing races is a bit much, but considering how NASCAR ultimately neglected to back up “their standard” caution flag procedure, it’s easy to see how Busch felt he was wronged.
Could he have handled his post-race actions better? Of course. But the blame can’t be 100 percent Busch’s in the instance. He felt like NASCAR did him wrong, and considering how intense he is, he acted accordingly and there is nothing wrong with that.
So, once again, drop the stern rhetoric, NASCAR.
