Kyle Busch's chances for a weekend sweep hit the wall thanks to the rear bumper of Clint Bowyer.
Busch, the only driver to win a truck race, Nationwide race and Sprint Cup Series race on the same weekend at the same track, had crossed off the first two races on Friday and Saturday at Dover. A win Sunday in the Cup race would have given him the second triple of his career and he started on the pole.
However, when Clint Bowyer slid up in front of him on lap 125, Busch ended up crashed into the wall and furious with Bowyer.
After his car was battered from the contact, Busch basically chased Bowyer around the track as Bowyer was forced to accelerate around the cars ahead of him to avoid being retaliated against. Cooler heads prevailed after Busch was told by his team and NASCAR not to do anything and he pulled into the garage without further incident.
Busch's team also told him that Bowyer's spotter had cleared him. Before the crash, Bowyer's spotter encouraged him to get up in front of Busch in his lane before the No. 18 had a run off the high side of turn four. However, when Bowyer heeded his spotter's advice, Busch was already outside of him and contact was unavoidable.
"I hated that with Kyle," Bowyer said. "We're teammates, so to speak, with the manufacturer (Toyota) and it was a bad deal. Obviously I thought I was clear and he kind of got up there and I thought he was going to give it to me and he didn't. Ruined his day for sure and certainly didn't help ours."
Bowyer didn't escape the accident unharmed, either. The right-rear of his car was damaged and his team spent the next part of the race fixing the damage. They did a good enough job of it to allow Bowyer to drive back in to the top 10 and he briefly took the lead late after a two-tire pit stop.
On the race's final restart, Bowyer restarted fourth and tried to give Matt Kenseth, Busch's Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, a push into turn one. However, he hit Kenseth a bit awkwardly and Kenseth's car squirted into the outside wall, though he finished third, one spot ahead of Bowyer. Busch, meanwhile, finished 42nd.
"I was just trying to help him, man we were all spinning (the tires) like crazy and I had a pretty good run at him and he was still spinning when I hit him and knocked him into the wall and I was like 'not another Gibbs car,'" Bowyer said.
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Slim Borgudd Luki Botha JeanChristophe Boullion Sebastien Bourdais
