TALLADEGA, ALA. (AP) - Kyle Busch and Kasey Kahne practically re-enacted a scene from the Daytona 500, except on this massive speedway things ended badly for both of them.
Busch bumped Kahne’s rear bumper, and the contact Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway triggered a 16-car crash on lap 43 that sent both briefly to the infield care center and their cars to the garage. It was very similar to what happened in the season-opening Daytona 500.
“I had a lot of momentum and shot past Jimmie (Johnson) and I got up in front of the 18 (Busch) and then he wanted to pass me,” said Kahne, who was knocked out of the race. “He hit me once in the back when he tried to go to the right. We were just too close and he spun me. He got me in the right corner and spun into the wall. It was really hard to be pushing, especially through the tri-oval.
“With these cars the way they are, you can’t really do that, and we learned that in Daytona. Basically the same two cars in the same spot on the race track and I crashed and he didn’t that time. It’s just basically a redo of Daytona.”
Both Kahne and Busch wound up hitting the wall, and Busch was turned sideways.
His fortunes have turned in recent races. Since sweeping the Nationwide and Sprint Cup races in Texas, he has wrecked at Kansas (finishing 38th), Richmond (24th) and now Talladega. He re-entered the race Sunday down 52 laps from the leaders.
Kahne quickly made the connection with Daytona. For Busch, it was reminiscent of other Talladega crashes that get touched off with spontaneous decisions and hair-trigger reactions that still aren’t quite swift enough.
Busch said he was caught off guard when Kahne “made a move to get in front of me.”
“It was just kind of a misjudge,” Busch said. “That’s how these wrecks happen. That’s how the big ones do happen, especially when you’re up in the front like that. I didn’t expect Kasey to come up like that, but once I did I thought about staying in behind him. But then I was catching him too fast. Before I moved out from behind him, I got in the back of him.
“As soon as I touched him, he was spinning.”
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