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Busch and Truex's teamwork ends in disaster at the Brickyard - video

When their “teamwork” ended, so did Kyle Busch and Martin Truex Jr.’s respective races at the Brickyard 400 on Sunday.

Kyle Busch, Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, Martin Truex Jr., Furniture Row Racing Toyota crash

Kyle Busch, Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, Martin Truex Jr., Furniture Row Racing Toyota crash

YouTube screen grab

Kyle Busch, Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota
Kyle Busch, Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, Martin Truex Jr., Furniture Row Racing Toyota, Kevin Harvick, Stewart-Haas Racing Ford
Martin Truex Jr., Furniture Row Racing Toyota
Start: Kyle Busch, Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota Kevin Harvick, Stewart-Haas Racing Ford lead
Martin Truex Jr., Furniture Row Racing Toyota
Kyle Busch, Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota
Kyle Busch, Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota
Martin Truex Jr., Furniture Row Racing Toyota

For much of Stage 2 and into Stage 3, the two Toyota drivers coordinated their efforts on restarts to allow the duo to pull away and keep the rest of the field at bay at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Prior to a restart on Lap 111 of 160, Busch’s team asked him if he wanted to continue to work together or go it alone. Busch opted to race for the lead.

The drivers entered Turn 1 side-by-side and Truex wiggled underneath Busch and drifted up and into Busch’s No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.

Both cars ended up slamming into the SAFER barrier with Truex’s No. 78 Furniture Row Racing Toyota catching fire. Truex was able to quickly escape from the car and neither driver was hurt.

The incident took a bigger toll on Busch, who now has gone 36 races without a Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series win – the longest drought of his career.

“I guess we could have continued to play the teammate game and try to settle it on a green-flag pit stop, but I would never have the opportunity to pass him back, even if we had a stellar pit stop,” Busch said after visiting the infield care center.

“That’s the way it goes. We’ll just chalk it up as another one that we figured out how to lose these things by. It’s very frustrating for my guys. They build such fast Toyota Camrys and we had one today to go out there put ourselves in the records books for three in a row.

“But not happening.”

Truex took full responsibility for the incident.

“I just got loose and wrecked him I guess, totally my fault. Didn’t really know what to expect in that position and didn’t really realize that he was going to drive in that deep and suck me around,” Truex said.

“I will take the blame for that and obviously it was my fault. I hate it for Kyle, he had a great car and we did as well, but that’s racing. Glad I was able to get out, fire was bad. I had no brakes and I had to run into the wall a second time just to get it to stop so I could get out.

“Fortunately I’m okay and we’ll live to race another day.”

Both drivers are safely locked into the playoffs – Truex with three wins and Busch on points (he was third entering the race) – but the winless streak has been a thorn in Busch’s side.

Busch was dominant from the beginning of the race and swept both Stage victories – the first time he’s done that this season.

Busch entered the race having won the last two Brickyards and had won the pole for the second consecutive season.

Asked if he had the fastest car again in Sunday’s race, Busch glumly answered, “Yes.”

 

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