I am not a Kyle Busch fan, but I am not a hater. Did I like the way Saturday nights race ended? No. I bet Jr could taste that win when Denny’s tire started going down and Denny started backing up. Jr got up on the wheel on old tires and drove his best. The same with Kyle. The phrase 8 tires turn better than 4 comes to mind. The phrase rubbing is racing comes to mind. They were both racing to win at a short track. Jr had to run the high line, Kyle ran better low. I beleive Kyle’s car started up the hill so he had to turn into the skid. If he had not he would have spun up into Jr and taken them both out. Jr. was trying to keep Kyle down on a lower line than Kyle had been running because that would make him scrub some speed off. I beleive they were both racing hard for a win, and what happened was a product of racing hard.
We could see and hear the pain in Jr’s voice after the race. Was he whinning? No. He more or less said he felt bad that he had taken a 2nd or 3rd place car and come in 14th. But he had the stones to try and drive it to a win. Maybe if he had let Kyle go he could have pulled a crossover pass. Maybe, maybe, maybe… If I even thought Kyle had wrcked Jr on purpose, Yes I would be in the front of the haters line. Do I beleive Kyle will agressively drive on the edge, H*ll yes. He can drive a car other drivers would be wrecking. I also remember Jr comming off the corners like he was on a dirt track.
Did Bower deserve to win? Maybe not, but he was in the right place at the right time. We saw it on a hundred replays of Daytona, Allison and Yarboro wrecking and King Richard rolling past them to win.
It was one heck of a finish to what had been a some what tame, mundane race. I can’t wait till nest week at Darlington.