NASCAR star Kyle Busch will not start the Sprint Cup’s AAA Texas 500 after being parked for deliberately wrecking a rival competitor in the Camping World Truck Series race at the venue.
Driving for his own Kyle Busch Motorsport team, the 26-year-old came into contact with title contender Ron Hornaday while battling for second early in the Truck Series race.
As the caution flag flew, Busch preceded to make further contact with the back of Hornaday’s truck, eventually turning the #33 entry hard into the outside wall.
Having removed Busch immediately from the race, NASCAR later announced that the Joe Gibbs Racing driver would not be allowed to take part in either the Nationwide or Cup Series races for the remainder of the weekend.
“The responsibility over the past two or three seasons we’ve given back to the drivers came, I think with a very clear understanding that there could be a line that got crossed,” said NASCAR president Mike Helton.
“As annoying as the comments that I’ve made personally in the past about ‘we’ll know it when we see it’ might have been, we saw it (Friday) night. Obviously after the event, a lot of folks put their heads together to decide what, if anything, we would do.
“The volume of occurrences or reactions like I’m talking about, the rarity of those times that we’d make a step like this speak to the uniqueness and the severity of the topic.
“We understand the ramifications or the ripple effect of us making this type of a move, but we also take our responsibility very serious as to maintaining control of the event in all the garages; so it’s a balance there that we ultimately have to make a decision.”
Helton also explained that Busch, who currently sits seventh in the Sprint Cup standings with three races remaining, may receive further sanctions for the incident.
JGR Nationwide driver Michael McDowell will take over Busch’s Toyota Camry for the Sprint Cup race.
See below for vision of the accident
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