Kyle Busch was the dominant car at Auto Club Speedway and won the race because of the last lap crash between Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin. Denny Hamlin hit the inside wall very hard and was taken to the hospital. Preliminary reports were that he hurt his back. With the win Kyle gave Toyota their first win at their home track.
In his post race press conference Kyle was asked about it.
Kyle, you obviously had a great car all day. When you were running behind Denny and Joey, though, considering what went down last week, did you kind of keep in the back of your mind something may be going down here again and kind of have that at all subconsciously?
KYLE BUSCH: Yeah, I did, actually. I was rolling around under caution earlier in the race and I seen some highlights of them two getting together from earlier in the race. So I’m like, oh, okay, well, they don’t get along this week again.
But man, I’m shocked for just everything that was going on there and how hard they were running. I mean, they both were trying to win the race, of course. But you know, all I kept thinking was, as I was commentating from the TV booth about the whole deal, I’m like, they’re forgetting the third place car. They have no clue that I’m coming, they have no clue, they’re just racing each other. I’m like, surely the spotter has got to say something. I mean, where are these guys? And saying, you know, hey, block the top, the 18 has got a run or something. But they were so focused in on one another that they just left the door open.
That does happen sometimes, and you know when else that happened was two years ago here with myself and Jimmie were running each other really, really hard towards the end of the race, and boom, Harvick snuck through and beat us both. That happens here sometimes in California. I mean, we put on some wild races. I mean, there are some maybe, quote-unquote, dull moments through the middles, but I’ll tell you, there was some really hard racing today, some good racing. I felt like the 22 and I put on a great show for the lead most of the day. And of course there at the end there’s one hell of a battle through 3 and 4 and then again on pit road another battle after the race.
But that’s part of racing sometimes. That’s what this sport was built on. Just ask Cale Yarborough and Donnie Allison.
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