After starting on the pole and dominating every practice round, Kurt Busch appeared set to cap a perfect weekend by winning Sunday at Auto Club Speedway.
Kurt Busch foiled by controversial caution
A questionable debris caution cost Kurt Busch a potential win Sunday.
But a controversial caution erased Busch’s sizable lead over Kevin Harvick with two laps remaining and Busch finished third. In reference to the sequence of events that took away a potential win, a frustrated Busch radioed to his team, “W-W-E.”
During the caution, Busch pitted to get two tires for the sprint to the finish under NASCAR’s green-white-checkered format. Busch quickly recaptured the lead after the race restarted, only for a second caution called due a bumper off Kyle Larson’s car.
Once the race resumed, Brad Keselowski -- who took four tires -- swept by Busch on the final lap off Turn 2 and drove away. Racing back to the checkered flag, Busch got loose allowing Harvick to pass for second.
Busch, who led a race-high 65 laps, didn’t focus on the questionable caution with two laps to go, instead citing Keselowski having four fresh tires as the reason for not winning.
“I don’t know what we could have done different,” Busch said. “We just got pinned in by the yellows. We had two tires; Keselowski had four. We didn’t need that extra yellow at the end and I just got out muscled by Keselowski.”
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series director Richard Buck defended the caution. He said officials called for the yellow flag because of a piece of metal spotted in Turns 3 and 4. And because of ACS’s wide surface and high speeds, any possible obstruction warrants inspection.
“Safety’s No. 1,” Buck said. “If there’s any question whatsoever, we’ll throw the caution. We want to identify it first, obviously, because there was a lot of paper trash and plastic bags flying around today. But we got definite confirmation on it that it was debris. It looked like a piece of metal.”
Sunday was Busch’s second race back after serving a three-week suspension following allegations he assaulted an ex-girlfriend last September. The Delaware Attorney General’s office elected not to criminally charge Busch on March 5, with NASCAR lifting his suspension the next week.
Buck denied any notion NASCAR deliberately altered the outcome to prevent Busch from winning. He said officials follow a protocol and who is leading at the time doesn’t factor into their determination.
“We don’t have any favorites,” Buck said. “We try to keep every emotion out of it. We work very closely in a very dynamic way to identify the situation and look for the solution to it, then that solution is backed up by multiple layers.”
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