FORT WORTH, Texas — Very few in NASCAR were doubting the chances of Kyle Busch winning Friday night’s (May 1) NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Texas Motor Speedway before the green flag dropped.
However, after he smacked the wall on lap 13 and went a lap down, it was probably waning a bit.
But battle back he did. Busch joined the likes of Front Row Motorsports driver Layne Riggs in a long uphill climb back into race-winning contention after what was a roller coaster night for both. Neither ended up in victory lane, but they certainly were in the picture before the end.
“Every week’s a new week, every day’s a new day, whatever challenges arise,” Busch said post-race on pit road after finishing second. “I mean, hell, I thought we were one of the best trucks, if not the best truck.”
Busch’s long night began on lap 20 when he brought his No. 7 Spire Motorsports Silverado into pit road for repairs. Upon his exit, he found himself a lap down. To make matters worse, the two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion failed to get his lap back on the next caution after Brendan Queen suffered a restart violation and went a lap down himself.
That was the bad news. The good news is his contact with the wall actually helped his truck’s handling.
“It helped, hitting the wall early actually, it actually did help me,” Busch revealed. “It tightened the truck up a little bit and flattened the right side out where it took some shape out of the truck and gave me some side force so I can lean on it more, and that was the confidence that I needed to be able to get back going forward again, but when you do that you’re flirting with disaster because it knocks the right front fender on the tire so I was probably overconfident that it was going to hold up and the tire wasn’t going to go down.”
While Busch’s climb through the field had only begun by the end of stage one, Riggs had already finished his first trip through the pack. The No. 34 started the race in 34th and had to make a serious charge through traffic. By the end of stage one, he had already worked his way into eighth.
“I don’t think anything went my way all day long,” Riggs told Frontstretch post-race. “Didn’t get to qualify, drove up nearly to the front. I don’t even know what all happened. I forgot, but I was at the rear of the field more than the front it felt like.”
Like Busch, however, Riggs slapped the wall in stage two. Also, like Busch, it didn’t seem to phase his truck as Riggs was in the top five at one point.
However, what did phase his effort was the damage to his back window that forced him to pit road during a caution period with less than five laps to go in the stage.
“They just tell me I had to pit,” Riggs said. “I mean, I saw something flapping in the back, and I didn’t really think anything of it. I thought it was tape or just something, but [crew chief] just said we got to pit and fix it, and all of a sudden there’s a guy over in my truck putting rivets in it, so, yeah, definitely disappointing for us.”
So, another climb through the field began for Riggs. Though it didn’t take long. The No. 34 was back in the top five near the end of the final stage after setting a blistering pace.
However, after not one but two red-flag periods for crashes in the final 10 laps, Both Riggs and Busch restarted near the edge of the top five for an overtime restart. For Riggs, it was a matter of wrong place, wrong time that had him end up finishing sixth.
“Yeah, I thought that considering the position I was in, I did the best job,” Riggs said. “I got to the top, got up to second, going into turn 1 of the last lap, and I guess the No. 17 just lost it under me and that took us both out.
“So, salvage sixth. I felt like we could have easily finished second there.”
Who did finish second was the Silverado of Busch, who slowly climbed his way into the field after getting his lap back near the middle of the 167-lap race.
On the penultimate restart, he was fifth and four spots behind eventual race winner and Spire teammate Carson Hocevar.
“I thought that second to last restart, I thought I had a chance,” Busch recalled. “But I was getting PTSD of the All-Star Race between me and [Denny Hamlin] when I got fenced off of turn 2, so I had to check up and not get too high in the fluff and hit the wall off the corner, so I just gave him position, and then, I had to battle off the rest of the guys behind me, but I was able to get a good clean air spot there through [turns] 1 and 2 on that final restart and come home second.”
After the way their nights started, second and sixth are not a bad way to end them.
Dalton Hopkins began writing for Frontstretch in April 2021. Currently, he is the lead writer for the weekly Thinkin' Out Loud column, co-host of the Frontstretch Happy Hour podcast, and one of our lead reporters. Beforehand, he wrote for IMSA shortly after graduating from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in 2019. Simultaneously, he also serves as a Captain in the US Army.
Follow Dalton on Twitter @PitLaneCPT