Saturday, May 7, 2011

Kyle Busch provides blow-by-blow of Darlington postrace

   Kyle Busch was very willing to discuss the aftermath of Saturday night's Southern 500 and  his run-in with Kevin Harvick. After tangling on the track, the drivers took their feud to pit road.

   Both drivers were called to the NASCAR hauler for a discussion of their postrace actions. Here is Busch's description of the events:

   “After the race I was just kind of cooling down and talking to Dave (Rogers, crew chief) on the radio about that I wanted to talk to him in the hauler about something and I see the (Kevin) Harvick car -- the 29 come up flying up on my inside through three and four. Instead of going to pit road I thought he was going to force me into the inside of the pit road wall so I gave myself a little bit of room and turned up to go back up onto the race track like I would for another cool down lap and he followed me. When he pulled up next to me, I tried to back up. I put my car in reverse and tried to back up and I blew reverse out of the transmission. I tried to back up too fast and the transmission gears are so light that they can’t take that kind of abuse. Blew reverse out so then I had to pull forward and kind of do a U-turn to get back to pit road.

   "I was just trying to get away from the situation with Harvick and unfortunately he got to pit road before me so I pulled in behind him. He let the 47 (Bobby Labonte) go, but I knew if I tried to turn left or right he was going to run into me or block me or something. I just stayed behind him, I was just going to sit there, not worry about it and let him cool his head for a second and let him figure out that we just need to go back to the garage area. Instead of him doing that, he wanted to get out of his car I guess and wanted to fight. I knew that wasn’t going to be a good situation and when I saw him getting out of his car, I knew it wasn’t going to be a good situation.

   "My choices were limited, I was either going to get punched in the face and then wait for Harvick to get back in his car for me to go or just drive through his car and push it out of the way so I could get out of there and try not to get hit or anything like that. I made a judgment call there and it wasn’t one of the best choices that I had, but I pushed his car out of the way on pit road and unfortunately there was men walking down pit road. I hate it that somebody could have gotten hurt, but I was just trying to get away from it and get back to my hauler and go on with my own business.”

Dale Junior talks about the strength of his grandmother

   With it being Mother's Day weekend at Darlington Raceway, many of the NASCAR drivers are asked to share stories about their mothers and many of the mothers participate in the command to start engines in the Sprint Cup race. 

   On Friday, Dale Earnhardt Jr. was asked to talk about the strength of his grandmother, Martha Earnhardt, in his family. Martha is the mother of the late Dale Earnhardt Sr. Earnhardt Jr. gave a very poignant response:

   "Any wife, girlfriend – this business is pretty hard on them, makes them pretty tough. You stick it out. You'll be pretty tough by the end of it. My Ma-Maw (grandmother), she's got a lot of knowledge about the sport and what it takes to be involved to be involved in the sport; what she went through. You just have to respect somebody like that. You have a ton of respect for somebody like that," he said.

   "To see and done everything she's done; witnessed everything she has witnessed from her husband Ralph and her son, all of her sons. I'm sure they all put her through equal amounts of trouble and stress. She enjoying the fruits of all that now with all the grandkids and everybody, hopefully for many years to come."