HAMPTON, Ga. - Kyle Busch hit the wall in practice Saturday at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
The incident happened less than 10 minutes into the day’s lone Cup practice. Busch had posted the second-fastest lap before the incident.
The car had damage to the right rear. Busch drove the car back to the garage. The team pulled out the backup car. He’ll give up his sixth starting spot and go to the rear of the field.
“Just got loose,” Busch said. “Car was pretty good to fire off there. Just kept getting a little bit looser, a little bit looser. Tried to go back to the bottom, to run the bottom ... and it just snapped.
“It was just tire wear, normal getting looser as you go. It got a little bit loose for a couple of laps, and then it just got really, really loose that lap that I crashed. I went through (Turns) 3 and 4 in the middle just fine, no looseness at all, and tried to run the bottom of 1 and 2 and spun out.
“The corner speeds are higher so when you do have an issue, the issue happened really fast, happened faster than it typically would because of the corner speeds are higher. The crash was harder to save. In the past, I feel I would have been able to do a better job (of saving the car).”
Busch did not get on track with the backup car before the practice session ended.
As for starting at the back of the field, Busch isn’t too worried.
“I think it will be fine,” Busch said. “Obviously, I think the biggest unknown is the backup car. I trust in Adam (Stevens, crew chief) and my guys and everybody at Joe Gibbs Racing that we’ll be fine. It will just have to be a managed race, a differently managed race than what we expected from (Friday’s) qualifying.”
.@KyleBusch heading to a back-up car after contact with the wall during Saturday’s practice @amsupdates @SNICKERS pic.twitter.com/4M8qaNuKRT
— Joe Gibbs Racing (@JoeGibbsRacing) February 23, 2019