Photo Credit: Noel Lanier
Kyle Busch, driver of the No.18 Banfield Pet Hospital Toyota, was looking to cruise his way to another victory at Richmond International Raceway, but as the laps wound down he started to lose the handling of his car. Teammate Carl Edwards, who was running second at the time, caught up to Busch and going into the final corner on the final lap executed the bump and run, which led him to win the race. Busch ended up finishing second.
“It was just racing I guess,” Busch said. “We had a great car. The Banfield Pet Hospital Camry was really good today. We were fast. Maybe not as good as Carl (Edwards) was on the long run but we did everything right. We did everything we were supposed to do and put ourselves in the right position. Adam (Stevens, crew chief) made some awesome adjustments to this car. We lost it there the second to last run and were fading a little bit but the guys gave me an awesome pit stop, got me track position and got us out front and we had a shot to win so that’s all that matters.”
Edwards putting the bump and run on Busch just proved that when it comes down to the final lap there are not teammates and its every man for themselves. It may not have set well with Busch immediately following the race, though, as he did deferred questions asked about the bump to talk about the strength of his team.
Carl Edwards felt that since both were locked into the Chase with wins that it was each man for their own. It seemed that the feeling wasn’t mutual.
“My guys give me great racecars each and every week,” Rowdy said. “We continue to have fast Camrys. We’ll be continuing to run up front and race for wins.”
Busch had an ill-handling car as the laps wound down because of how much the track changed from the start of the race to the end.
“A lot,” Busch said. “The track changed a lot. There were a lot of things going on. At first you were always tight and then in the end it seemed like we were kind of just getting looser and looser as the day was going. So, real weird the way that was happening. It’s definitely different being a day race with how the track was changing.”
Despite his own ill-handling issues at the end, Busch did note that Sunday afternoon races are better versus Saturday night races.
“Yeah, the track was certainly different in the day versus night definitely,” Busch said. “The things that we had to do to adjust on our car was not as typical as we normally have here in years past. Throughout the race in the beginning part, we kept getting tighter, tried to free it up. At the end we got looser, had to tighten it back up. You go through those swings in these races sometimes. That’s why I say my guys did a great job of adjusting on the car for me to keep me up front and getting me in position and having a shot to win.”
