Kyle Busch blows tire, triggers five-car wreck involving top Daytona 500 contenders
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - Kyle Busch lost a rear tire on his No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, crashing hard entering Turn 3 on Lap 1o5, which ended his hopes of winning his first Daytona 500.
For Busch, who won the first stage of the race and had one of the top cars, it was an abrupt and frustrating end to the race.
“We were just biding our time, playing it out, trying to see what the strategies were gonna to do at the segments,” Busch said. “Thankfully we have I guess a segment point you know out of this day. That’s a positive. But man, you’re trying to win the Daytona 500 here, you know? It’s just so disappointing.”
The contact knocked the 2015 series champion out of the race and collected Dale Earnhardt Jr., Matt Kenseth, Erik Jones and Ty Dillon with him.
“I don’t know if it was a left rear that went down or the right that went down but man, tore up three JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing) cars in one hit and also Jr. (Dale Earnhardt Jr.),” said Busch, who won the first stage of the race.
“So I feel bad, horrible, for those guys, but man, nothing that we did wrong, You know obviously Goodyear tires just aren’t very good at holding air. It’s very frustrating when we have that down here every single year we’ve been here.”
“I looked back to make sure I was clear and when I looked back up they were already crashed in front of me and I already had Erik (Jones) parked on my hood,” said Kenseth, a two-time Daytona 500 winner. “Just happened pretty quick. I just didn’t have anywhere to go. Never saw it happen and didn’t have anywhere to go.”
“(Busch) just got loose into (Turn) 3 and lost it and I got in the side of him,” added Jones. “Couldn’t do much about it.”
Stucker said a preliminary examination of Busch's rear tires was "inconclusive," but added that Goodyear saw no evidence from any other cars during the first two stages of Sunday's Daytona 500 to indicate there were widespread tire problems.
The incident took out several of the top contenders and was the first significant incident of the race.
