NASCAR say ‘the benefit of the doubt is running out pretty quickly’ for Kyle Busch despite not giving the Cup Series legend a penalty at Texas on Sunday.
The 41-year-old two-time Cup Series king came in for heavy criticism in some areas after a collision with John Hunter Nemechek wrecked the No. 42 car during the Wurth 400.
The flashpoint happened when the pair got together on corner exit, with Busch moving up before fully clearing the No. 42 and both thumping into the wall, but it was the second part of the sequence - with the No. 8 veering up and fully wrecking Nemechek in apparent retaliation at the next corner - that drew attention.
Busch continued to the finish, clearly with damage to his car, to end what had been a strong afternoon in 20th place as the last car on the lead lap.
Afterwards Busch would seek to move the blame for the accident in his comments on social media, and when the official penalty report finally arrived on Tuesday NASCAR decided there was not enough evidence to merit a penalty.
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Why did Kyle Busch not get a penalty?
NASCAR explained just why Busch avoided the rap with Mike Forde (Vice President of Racing Communications) saying data showed nothing to prove he had made a move with the intention of wrecking Nemechek.
Speaking on the Hauler Talk podcast, he explained: “No penalty there, Kyle Busch will not be penalized. Video, audio and SMT data. So talked about Scott Miller - former Senior Vice President Competitions, NASCAR - now moved into the role of Competitions Strategist. He’s still part of our team and one of his responsibilities is when we have incidents like this, is to dive into the SMT data. He has a long history with that and so we rely on his expertise when we do that. The SMT data is largely what played a role for us in this decision.
“The data told us that after the incident he was turning the wheel all the way left to go straight. So we had a feeling he had some pretty significant damage. It was inconclusive on if that was a damaged vehicle that caused him to get into the 42 or if it was intentional. There was zero things in our opinion that said he did this intentionally and rose to the level of penalty. So that’s why we landed on no penalty there.”
Benefit of the doubt ‘running out quickly’ for Kyle
So no penalty then for Busch, but there appears to be a clear feeling in Charlotte that the Richard Childress Racing superstar is now walking a disciplinary tightrope.
Forde added: “We do plan to have a discussion - Brad Moran and company - with Kyle and the rest of RCR leadership. As was pointed out several times also, this is the second time in the last four weeks where there’s been discussion postrace on whether or not he should have a penalty, first was Riley Herbst at Bristol.
“And so maybe let’s not have to be having this conversation as often as we are, because the benefit of the doubt is running out pretty quickly. We’ll have that conversation with pertinent parties.”
Did Busch and Nemechek have a fight?
The other big question coming out of Busch vs Nemechek came when footage was shared of the latter with a bloody nose as he walked away from his stricken No. 42 car.
Despite the unsurprising speculation on social media, Forde said: “I don’t believe there was a fight - we have a member of our security team in the meetings, that didn’t come up. If there was a fight that was reported, that would be part of the discussion too. So as far as we know, there was no fight.”
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