Getty Kyle Busch on grid at Darlington.
Kyle Busch is in the midst of one of the worst struggles in his Hall of Fame-worthy career, recording a painful four DNFs in his last six races. The two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion added the latest miserable chapter at the July 14 Pocono race when he suffered another DNF after Corey LaJoie got into the rear of the No. 8 car in the final stage, which went for a spin and took out multiple cars in the process.
Moments after the incident, NBC aired the team communications from the No. 7 car.
“You all good there?” LaJoie’s crew asked him over the radio.
“I think so. Check the nose,” the driver replied. “He hooked himself.”
Jeff Burton didn’t sugarcoat what he thought about @CoreyLaJoie‘s move against @kylebusch at @PoconoRaceway.
“Yeah. I ain’t worried about him,” his spotter responded. “It’s all about us. Focus forward. You let him have it the first time. Second time he got what he deserved. All good.”
Up in the broadcast booth, Jeff Burton didn’t like what he heard and didn’t sugarcoat what he thought about it.
“Well, that right there doesn’t, to be honest with you, if I’m not only Kyle Busch but all the other guys that got in the wreck, I’m really unhappy with that because he hooked himself,” Burton stopped and watched the replay being shown to the viewing audience. “Well, yes. Right here. This big block, right? That’s a big block. That’s an aggressive block.
“But this — Kyle Busch didn’t hook himself there. He got hooked there and if LaJoie thinks he deserved that, then LaJoie has the prerogative to do it.”
“Well, but he has to go explain it to the 21 and the 41 and the 16 and the 47,” Steve Letarte weighed in.
“And it’s not, by the way, it’s not the racetrack, you want to hook somebody,” Burton pointed out. “You are flying down at the end of turn one.”
Kyle Busch Shares Thoughts on Incident
A few minutes after the incident and exiting the infield care center, Busch visited with NBC’s Kim Coon and initially thanked all of the team’s partners before the reporter asked him if there was an issue between him and LaJoie and if they needed to have a conversation.
“Nah,” Busch offered a brief one-word answer.
Kyle Busch could see what was happening in his mirrors but not much he could do about it as he was clipped by Corey LaJoie.
That’s what Busch had to say for the broadcast. Several moments later he talked with the rest of the media and expanded on his perspective of what happened.
“Of course you have mirrors and cameras and everything else, so you try to get in front of the run that’s coming,” he said. “And I was trying to get in front of that run, and sometimes some don’t lift. Kamikaze.”
Corey LaJoie Doesn’t Accept Responsibility for Wrecking Busch
Kyle Busch’s comments lined up with what everyone saw and what Jeff Burton and Steve Letarte conveyed on the NBC telecast. Interestingly, Corey LaJoie provided a very different version of events.
Corey LaJoie on what happened on the restart where he ended up turning Kyle Busch:
“Yeah, I got a big push from the 16,” LaJoie said. “When you’re 20th back there, dude, you’re in the hornet’s nest and you’re seven-wide into one. If you’re not the guy in the bottom, somebody else behind you is gonna jam it in there and put you freaking middle, right?
“So I had a bit of a run. 16 gave me a big shot. I got to the left rear of the eight and he blocked it once and I just kind of held the wheel straight and I was almost anticipating our bumpers kind of lining up and giving him a little bit of a shove. But when he blocked it the second time, it just turned him across my nose. You know, I hate I tore up some good cars.”
LaJoie might feel bad for tearing up some cars, but this might not be over. It will be interesting to see how NASCAR handles this. If they view it as hooking as Burton described, which is a big no-no, LaJoie could face a one-race ban similar to Chase Elliott in 2023 and Bubba Wallace in 2022. If officials see it as just a racing incident, then we’ll never hear another word about it.
But don’t mistake that for Kyle Busch or any of the other drivers involved at Pocono as having forgotten about it. They haven’t.