NASCAR Kentucky 2013: Kurt Busch triggers huge crash that eliminates Brad Keselowski, Greg Biffle

SPARTA, Ky. -- A major accident early in Sunday’s Sprint Cup Series race at Kentucky Speedway eliminated both defending Series champion Brad Keselowski and Greg Biffle from race contention.

The crash occurred on lap 47 when Kurt Busch drove off the apron into turn one and initiated contact with Keselowski. The defending champion initially drove down the apron but spun back up the turn one racing surface, ultimately causing both Biffle and David Reutimann to pile into the accident.

Busch apologized over the radio but Keselowski says it doesn’t change how his day ended, remarking that the field was racing “like animals” on that last restart.

“I know he didn’t intentionally do it,” Keselowski said. “But it’s one of those things -- a chain of events -- the way cars drive with the bumps down there and we all know that. There’s just no good reason to go down there but he still did.”

Keselowski is the defending winner of this race and was hoping to use his success at Kentucky to turn around a recent string of bad luck. He entered the race eighth in the championship standings and without a victory to use towards a potential wild card berth at the end of the regular season.

He doesn’t think it will change the way he races for the remainder of the year.

“We are just going to go do our thing,” he added. “It’s a streak of bad luck. And when it runs up we’ll get to victory lane.”

And what about Busch’s apology?

“I’m still wrecked and he’s smarter than that.”

The race was delayed from Saturday night to Sunday afternoon due to rain and the track conditions have been increasingly slick as a result. The Kentucky Speedway track surface is by far the bumpiest on the schedule, leading to some of the some of the accidents according to Biffle.

“It’s just a rough race track,” he said. “It doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with it -- it just means it’s find a set-up. I don’t know what happened there, I was just trying to get to the bottom.”

All told, seven cars were involved in the accident including Landon Cassill and Dave Blaney and Paul Menard.