Kyle Busch said watching the two-car drafts at Daytona International Speedway during Saturday night’s Budweiser Shootout “sucked,” while teammate Denny Hamlin called for NASCAR to lift its restrictive yellow-line rule on the final lap of the race.
2011 Daytona 500: Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin Discuss State Of Racing
The drivers made their comments after attending a screening of the new Toyota Sponsafier commercials along with a group of reporters on Sunday morning.
Busch, the morning after getting wrecked by Mark Martin in one of the two-car drafts, said he didn’t enjoy watching the remainder of the race in terms of entertainment value – and said 85 percent of the fans who replied to him on Twitter agreed.
"It sucked," Busch said. "You're watching four cars and then you have another two there and another two there. To me, it sucked."
Because the finish was “a race between four guys” instead of a pack, Busch said the two-car drafts leave something to be desired at Daytona.
"You're watching them go single file, and all you're waiting for is Turn 4, what's going to happen," he said. "It's not like 'What's going to happen with 30 cars in a pack for the last two laps?'
“There’s no more Dale Earnhardt coming from 33rd to the lead in three laps or whatever at Talladega (in 2000). Obviously, that’s gone. With four cars and people watching for four hours...it comes down to the end like that.”
Hamlin noted that in 33 races out of the year, four cars coming to the finish line would be considered a great finish.
“How many times do you see that at Bristol?” Hamlin said to Busch. “How many times do you see that at Kansas?”
But for the Daytona 500, Busch said a small group of cars competing for the finish would not acceptable to fans.
“Not in my opinion,” Busch said.
A new challenge for the drivers
Hamlin said the new two-car drafts present “a whole different form of racing” and, thus, a completely new challenge for the drivers.
“We went from playing one type of game to an entire different game,” he said, adding that the classic restrictor-plate aces such as Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon have had their advantage completely taken away.
Now, Hamlin said, whoever learns the new style of restrictor-plate racing will have the upper hand. It’s all about learning quickly, he added.
One significant issue is drivers cannot see over the spoiler of the car in front of them while they’re pushing. In Hamlin’s case, he told his spotter to call the action as if Hamlin was the lead car, not the pusher.
“My spotter was spotting him for me,” Hamlin said. “I didn’t know what was going on around me. So it was a weird, weird game. And you don’t know whether you’re pushing them into cars that are giving room or not.”
Busch said that was part of the reason he was wrecked by Mark Martin – Martin was on the gas relentlessly, and Busch was practically helpless to steer the pairing.
“Two laps before we ended up wrecking, he was pushing me already coming up to the restart and I ran into the back of the 24 car and was like, `What are we doing? Relax, son!’” Busch said. “And then we get going down to the backstretch and we’re bumper-to-bumper again and I’m trying to weave my way through and I find a lane, and now there’s two cars in front of me and he can’t see it.
“So I start dragging the brake a little bit, and I’m like turning into the corner and he starts turning me sideways into three. And I somehow held onto it, moved up the track...I got room and I wrecked into one. He was mad-on, just going. He didn’t care what was in front of him or what was going on.”
Busch added that just the slightest miscommunication between he and Martin resulted in the wreck. When Busch saw room outside of cars up ahead of him, he turned his wheel a tiny bit to the outside.
“He didn’t quite follow me good enough and he got to my inside and turned me sideways,” Busch said.
Yellow-line rule
Hamlin crossed the finish line first in the Budweiser Shootout, but his pass was ruled to be illegal after he went below the yellow line.
Still, Hamlin maintained he was ahead of Ryan Newman before passing below the line and called for the yellow-line rule to be eliminated on the last lap of the race.
“For sure,” he said when asked if the rule should be changed.
Later, he speculated there would be fewer wrecks and controversy if there was no yellow line rule.
“If I come up the track any sooner, I get hooked in the right rear and I collect the 22 (race winner Kurt Busch), the 1 (Jamie McMurray) – all of us wreck.” he said. “We (would) all wreck. There was no choice there.
"We could do it. We could come in a heaping pile to the line, I guess. I mean, that would be (exciting)."
Busch told reporters that drivers don't go down to the line in hopes of avoiding contact as much as they dart down to prevent a competitor from side-drafting.
"We're not going down there to go down and improve our position," he said. "We're just trying to get away from him slowing us down."
Race strategy
Busch speculated his older brother, Kurt, was the one who had the best strategy at the end of the race because he waited until Hamlin and Newman got side-by-side with one another.
"Kurt played it perfect the whole time," Kyle said.
Hamlin argued that things would be different if the situation occurred in the Daytona 500, since Jamie McMurray wouldn't be willing to just be a pusher.
"Jamie knew his chances – he wasn't going to win – but he committed to pushing Kurt the whole time," Hamlin said. "I think in the 500 or somewhere else, Jamie is going to be trying to make up positions to coming to the line. I don't think he's going to just push."
As of Sunday afternoon, most people in the garage were speculating that NASCAR would do even more to break up the two-car drafts prior to the Daytona 500 – and even the Gatorade Duels.
Busch suggested NASCAR mandate the size of the grille opening, but Hamlin quickly hushed his fellow driver.
“You have to make (the cars) faster,” Hamlin said. “It’s the only way to stop it. We have to run like 200 (mph) by themselves. The cars are not going to handle good (going) 210, 215 with a push (from another car).”
See More:
