Kyle Busch works on one fence, finds another needs mending

JIM UTTER

The Charlotte Observer

Sunday, Jul. 29, 2007

• David Poole | Performance and popularity not always part of the same package

INDIANAPOLIS – This gamble failed in several ways.

Desperate to do something to get to the front of Sunday’s Allstate 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Kyle Busch’s team elected to have him pit for four tires on a late-race caution while most of the lead-lap cars remained on the track.

Busch, who had one of the fastest cars during the race, restarted 12th on Lap 141 but could only get to fifth in the final 19 laps. He also managed to irritate driver Jeff Burton along the way.

Immediately after both cars stopped on pit road after the race, Burton emerged from his No. 31 Chevrolet and took off to find Busch’s car. Burton then engaged Busch in a heated and animated conversation for nearly a minute as Busch tried to climb from his car.

Asked what he was upset about, Burton replied, “That’s between me and Kyle” and declined to answer other questions related to the topic.

“I passed him and he was mad at that,” said Busch. “On the restart before (the last one) when I made the pass on him, we were talking about how (Mark Martin) didn’t have second gear and was getting a slow run down the front straightaway.

“He was kind of checking everybody up and then he would pull low and then (Burton) would act like he was going to the outside and I would go down to the bottom. I was getting run over from behind, so I had to go the outside. I had no choice.

“If he wants to be mad at it, go look at the tape.”

Busch had just attempted this weekend to clear up another controversy, when he apologized to his Hendrick Motorsports teammates on Saturday for comments he’d made two weeks ago at Chicagoland Speedway.

“I have made a lot of mistakes and opened my mouth too much,” Busch said. “We had our team meeting and after it was over I went ahead and made an apology to my teammates and my crew chief.”

At Chicagoland, Busch said he didn’t plan to help any of his teammates as he finishes what will be his final year with the Hendrick team. The trouble started at Daytona, where Busch complained after narrowly losing the Pepsi 400 to Jamie McMurray that his teammates didn’t help him in the draft as much as they could have.

Busch, who gained a position and is eighth in points, said the payoff on the gamble to pit never materialized.

“It wasn’t worth pitting. You try to figure out something to win the race. If you would have had third on back come down pit road, the first and second cars would have been done,” he said.

“For us to come and get tires, we thought it was in our best interests, but in the end, with the way those guys were racing up front, we probably could have gotten by them because we had a good enough car.”

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