- Associated Press - Tuesday, May 7, 2013

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - Kurt Busch says there’s no one to blame for his car going airborne at Talladega Superspeedway on Sunday _ and feels lucky that Ryan Newman was in the right spot to prevent what Busch expected would be a series of barrel rolls for him and his car.

Busch’s flight came after contact between Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and J.J. Yeley set off a scary crash. Busch got up in the air and spun before landing on Newman’s car.

Busch says Tuesday that he “got lucky that Ryan Newman was in the position he was in to save my car from multiple barrel rolls. “

He considers himself an innocent bystander who was in the wrong place at the worst time.

“There’s nobody to blame,” Busch says. “I can’t even blame NASCAR for it. It’s just when it’s a free-for-all like that at the end of the race, you have to expect bumping and grinding.”

Busch joked that when he took off, he was preparing for a roll to last “from Talladega to Georgia” until he landed smack on top of Newman. That helped Busch “settle back onto the track and not be as big of a wreck as it could’ve been.”

Newman wasn’t as accepting Sunday night after the race, which took 7 hours to complete because of a 3 hour, 36 minute rain delay. Newman was upset about the accident and bothered that NASCAR resumed the race with darkness closing in on the track.

“They can build safer race cars, they can build safer walls. But they can’t get their heads out of their (expletive) far enough to keep them on the race track, and that’s pretty disappointing,” Newman said. “I wanted to make sure I get that point across. Y’all can figure out who `they’ is.”

Busch was not hurt in the accident and is preparing for the Bojangles Southern 500 on Saturday night at Darlington Raceway.

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