Kyle Busch was angling for his second straight top 10 just days after a crew chief change. John Hunter Nemechek was in position for his best NASCAR Cup Series performance of 2026.
Neither one got to finish Sunday’s (May 3) race at Texas Motor Speedway the way they wanted. And after a last-lap wreck between them, Nemechek didn’t mince words about what he felt was Busch’s intentional move to crash them both.
Both drivers started racing each other due to a setback from a late caution. At the time of the yellow for Corey Heim’s incident, Busch was running in ninth while Nemechek sat 13th, cruising to their best runs of the year. But pit stops for fresh tires left them 11th and 16th, respectively, forcing them to fight through the field on the final restart.
The duo wound up side-by-side on the backstretch in a battle for about 13th spot. With one-and-a-half laps remaining, Busch pushed to the right thinking he was clear of the No. 42.
He wasn’t.
That put Busch hard into the wall, ruining any shot Busch had of a recovery. Seconds later, he let Nemechek get alongside of him entering turn 3, then turned right in a move that bodyslammed the No. 42 Chevrolet into the wall.
The incident (shown below) left Nemechek frustrated.
“Not freaking clear,” Nemechek tweeted. “Great day going. And just got wrecked [by Busch]. What an ass.”
Busch also wound up with heavy damage, finishing as the last car on the lead lap in 20th. Nemechek was unable to finish, bringing his damaged car down pit road while the rest of the race finished under green-flag conditions.
Busch refused to comment in-person after the race about the incident, but like Nemechek, he took to Twitter to offer his side of the story as well as some screenshots and recordings of SMT data.
“I did not start this,” Busch wrote. “The 42 apparently doesn’t know where the RS of his car is and where he is in relation to the outside wall. There was two feet outside him, and I was judging my left side tires to the hash marks. Always know who you’re racing beside.”
It’s not the first time he’s gotten into trouble at Texas; the two-time Cup champion was suspended by NASCAR in 2011 for this intentional wreck of Ron Hornaday Jr. in a NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race after the two made contact while battling for position.
While both Busch and Nemechek were made unavailable to the media after the race, Busch’s new crew chief Andy Street did speak to Frontstretch.
“That last restart, we started to make some moves, got around a few people,” Street said. “Kind of got hung behind the 3 [Austin Dillon] for a few laps there. And then went up, just trying to make some spots up and I’m not real sure what happened off of 2 there [with the 42]…
“I saw what was on SMT (NASCAR’s official data provider) but I don’t know. I gotta go back and look.”
Both drivers now leave Texas without the result they needed, a black cloud hanging over the ending of their races. Any NASCAR penalties surrounding the incident, if any are imposed, won’t come until the middle of this week.
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I’m not a fan of either of these guys, but Busch’s argument is weak. So what, JHN has 2 feet of space between the right side of his car and the wall. He is not obliged to run an inch off of the wall just to give Busch room. JHN held his line KB moved up and wasn’t clear. He then threw an old school Kyle Busch temper tantrum and intentionally wrecked JHN.
Considering Nemchek’s reputation for contact with other cars I expect there will be a few more retaliatory spins for him.
We’re now giving time to one of the worst drivers to ever sit in a race car? Nemecheck is French for meth head and he shows it every week.
You can’t possibly look at that video and think that Nemechek is at fault for this. Busch was nowhere near clear when he tried to fall in line (assuming he was actually racing). And what happened after tells me it was intentional by Busch. Kinda stupid to be playing these games when you have been running like crap all season and needed a good finish.