Fan reportedly tries to fight Kyle Busch after he wrecked Martin Truex out of the Bristol night race
Watch the video of the post race altercation below
On lap 2 of the race at Bristol Motor Speedway, Kyle Busch slipped off the inside lane. He went up the hill, tagged Blaney and went around.
As Busch slid sideways down the front stretch, the field scattered behind them. Busch suffered damage on all four corners of the car as the field piled into him.
The crew made repairs. At this point, Busch was two laps down. However, the crew took too long to release him from the pit lane. Busch caught the tail of the field on a restart and nearly went three laps down. Instead, he drove away from the leader.
In the closing laps of the race, Kyle Busch had miraculously charged all the way back to the 3rd position. He looked low on Truex off turn two then attempted to slide in behind him off the corner.
Instead, Busch clipped him in the left rear. That sent Truex toward the inside wall at a high rate of speed. Truex pounded the inside wall, came back across the track and slammed into JJ Yaley.
Truex parked the car on pit road. As he got out of the car he kicked the door.
Martin Truex on Kyle Busch
“Half [Kyle Busch’s] fault, half my fault for following the 14 [of Bowyer] so long,” Truex said after the incident. “I should’ve knocked his butt out of the way because he held me up for 15-20 laps and I burnt my front tires off screwing with him — so just played too nice and got the crappy end of the stick.”
“I didn’t think he was going to run into me,” Truex said.
“Usually we race great together all the time. We had one incident last year and it was my fault totally [at Indianapolis] and we had this one incident tonight and obviously it was totally his fault. I guarantee you he didn’t do it on purpose.”
“It is just the way it goes sometimes.”
Sherry Pollex on Kyle Busch
Emotions don’t just run high for the drivers when it comes to Bristol Motor Speedway. After the incident, Sherry Pollex went on a little bit of a twitter rant. She’s the longtime girlfriend of Martin Truex Jr.
8:15: “Omg I can’t believe that just happened. Kyle Busch is a moron,” Pollex tweeted.
8:15 “Wow.”
9:01: “Someone made me delete it.”
9:04: “I’m in Twitter time out. Going to make memories and enjoy the off week. NASCAR fans are passionate. I love it and love you even if you yelled at me bc your a Kyle fan!!!”
9;11: “We put our heart and soul into this sport. It’s a lot of blood, sweat and tears for both of us. So it sucks when shit like that happens. But I get it. It’s racing. I’ll be over it tomorrow. Just glad MT is ok, that’s all I care about.”
Kyle Busch on the incident with Truex
As mentioned, this was not the first time that Truex and Busch tangled on the race track while racing for position toward the front of the field. These two are essentially teammates. Yet, in July 2017, they crashed while race for the lead at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
After that race, the crews from each team were involved in a pit lane altercation. Joe Gibbs Racing reacted by suspending crew members of the #78. Days later, FRR announced they would be managing their own crew members moving forward.
After the Bristol race, Kyle Busch spoke on the most recent contact between the two drivers. He took full blame for turning Truex.
“That was just a misjudgment on my behalf,” Busch said. “I crashed the 78 [of Truex] so that was bad. I totally misjudged that one coming off the corner.
“Knowing there were plenty of laps left, I wasn’t even in a hurry and I just misjudged it by four, six inches, whatever it was and I clipped him there and sent him for a ride.”
“I think they’re fine,” Busch said. “Maybe I will send them a sorry cake to the Denver shop [where the Truex team is based] for the guys having to work extra. They’ll probably throw that one away. It ruined their day of being able to get a win or a second.”
On the restart, Kyle Busch found more problems. He was race three wide with Jimmie Johnson and Chris Buescher. They banger, wheels, fenders and tail pipes as they raced for position. Busch ended up cutting a left rear tire and he was sent into the wall.
“We probably finished where we should have anyways as torn up as our race car is,” Busch said. “We had a shot to be able to come back there and win the race, realistically, if it wasn’t for getting caught up with the #37 [Chris Buescher] and the #48 [Jimmie Johnson].”
After the race
After the race, Kyle Busch reportedly had a little run in with the race fans on his way out of the race track. At Bristol, emotions run high for the drivers, their wives as well as the race fans.
Apparently, a fan approached Kyle Busch looking for a fight. Kyle Busch didn’t back down. Instead, he stepped up to the man. They stood chest to chest and a few shoves took place.
Police escorted the NASCAR fan from the Bristol, Tennessee race track. A video has surfaced of the altercation. There is also a photo from the scene. Both items are posted below.
Are the videos below not working? Try this link.
@jeff_gluck fan just tried to fight Kyle busch. Kyle went right back at him and went chest to chest with him and there were a few shoves. Police took the man away. Dropped my phone or I would’ve got a pic of the incident. This was once he went back to cart. Fan was gone in pic pic.twitter.com/2rDc0X5j5J
— Levi Smith (@TheCoolLevi) August 19, 2018
This is not the first time this type of thing has occurred. Fans access at a race is far greater than any sport out there.
Last year, a fan attempted to approach Denny Hamlin on pit road after Martinsville Speedway. That man was also halted by security.
More
Related: NASCAR fan confronts Denny Hamlin after Martinsville
Related: Bristol Race Results – August 18, 2018
Related: Kyle Busch vs Martin Truex Jr crew confrontation (VIDEO)
Related: Joe Gibbs Racing suspends #78 crew members
Related: Furniture Row Racing will now manage their own crews
Links
Kyle Busch | Martin Truex Jr | Bristol Motor Speedway | NASCAR
