Kyle Busch will start Sunday's NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Pure Michigan 400 from the back of the field after a crash in practice on Saturday morning forced the driver of the No. 18 Toyota to a backup car.
It's a stroke of bad luck that Busch hardly needs as he's battling for a spot in the NASCAR Chase for the Championship. Busch, who has four wins this season, enters Sunday's race 30th in the overall points standings after missing 11 races due to injuries. Busch needs to finish in the top 30 in the standings after 26 races -- Michigan is race No. 23 -- to qualify for the Chase. He has a six-point cushion over Cole Whitt for the 30th spot.
Busch qualified sixth for Sunday's race and posted the fourth-quickest time in Saturday's practice session before a spin coming out of turn four resulted in a spin into the infield crash. The front end took heavy damage.
“I was just running along, everything was fine and I was actually feeling pretty good about it," Busch said. "Just started to get a little free up off of (turn) four. It started stepping out like it did here in the spring. I over-corrected and hit the wall, so this time around I just kind of made it keep rotating and head down towards the infield. I think we need more grass at these racetracks; I think the apron should be full of grass.”
Busch has been a vocal critic of grass around racetracks, saying they are a hazard for the cars in the event of an accident.
“I think we should have more grass and it should be taller," Busch said, sarcastically. “We just learned about how the draft was and what kind of instances you could try to put yourself in and what kind of instances you didn’t want to be in. Now that we have to start in the back, it’s a good thing we did that. It’s a good exercise and we’ll just have to adjust our car for being in the back of the field.”
