Hendrick Motorsports Legend Decodes the Secret to Kyle Busch Saving JGR’s Blushes With His Actions

At the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Kyle Busch endured a topsy-turvy drive. He qualified all the way down in 18th, so his job was a lot tougher than usual. Nevertheless, he managed to claw his way to the front before undoing his hard work with a spin. Over the course of the race, he fought his way to the front, before tumbling back, and eventually finishing in 3rd.

In light of this, Hendrick Motorsports legend Steve Letarte analyzed Busch’s fantastic run.

He said, “Kind of surprising for Kyle Busch, to be quite honest. It reminds me a little bit of Kansas.”

“A single car issue I thought at first. Maybe it’d be a right rear tire. There was a concern, coming into this race. It wasn’t, you see the tire blows all the way down to the apron. The #18 spins by himself and loses all of his track position. Actually goes a lap down, he’s very fortunate, because he takes the wave around. In the next segment, gets a yellow with the #47 [Stenhouse Jr].

“Now he’s back on the lead lap. That kind of starts this ascent, ascending up the running order, all the way up to inside the Top 10 again.” 

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What else did he say about Kyle Busch?

Of course, after that unforced error on the track, Letarte spoke about the second reason why Busch was sent tumbling down. This time around, the #18 driver was absolved of any blame. However, it only shifted to his team, because they had botched the pit stop and sent him out with a loose wheel.

He continued, “Now, I can’t put this one on Kyle Busch. This one ends up on the pit crew. You see the drop in positions, it’s because they leave pit road without the left front wheel attached.”

“You’re going to see it. He comes off, he’s left, he knows he has an issue right away. It’s obvious there’s not even a wheel nut on this. The only thing holding this tire on the race car is the fender itself. That’s where the smoke is coming from.”

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One thing was for sure, Busch did a phenomenal job of wrestling every bit of performance from that car. As such, he emerged as the best of the remaining Joe Gibbs Racing cars.