Kyle Busch thought he might lose his ride

Plenty of people speculated that Kyle Busch might end up losing his ride after his incident in the truck race last week at Texas, and it turns out the driver thought the same thing.

“Was there a point in which I thought, ‘Do I have a ride?’ Of course there was,” Busch said. “Yeah, I thought that.”

However, Busch said Gibbs never suggested to him that Busch might be fired even though his sponsor, M&M’s/Mars, chose to pull its sponsorship in the final two weeks of the season. Interstate Batteries will grace the hood of the #18 at Phoenix and Homestead.



Busch also said he wasn’t surprised by the penalties NASCAR threw at him in the wake of the incident where he intentionally drover truck series championship contender Ron Hornaday into the wall under caution.

For Busch to not be surprised by NASCAR’s ruling, that means the leadership at Gibbs must have gotten to him quickly after the incident because Busch certainly didn’t sound remorseful in his TV interview right after the wreck.

“If I just lay over and give up everything for Ron Hornaday that is not Kyle Busch's fashion.” Busch said. “I’m sorry it was Ron Hornaday and he is going after a championship, but you can’t blame this all on one person.”

Well, NASCAR did blame it on one person, and Busch quickly joined the rest of the world in understanding what he did was wrong.

Busch said there has always been a gray area within NASCAR rules that everybody tries to push both in how the cars are built and the extent of drivers’ actions on the track.

“With the crew chiefs, with car chiefs, with our body hangers back at the shop trying to figure out how far we can go, you go that far and you push the envelope,” he said. “Sometimes you get slapped, or maybe a little bit worse than that, and I think we saw that this past weekend.”

Jimmie Johnson said drivers have a feeling of what to expect when they are involved in an altercation and they generally try to steer clear of the other driver until he gets to pit road or the garage area, although Brian Vickers still drove by Jamie McMurray at Martinsville when McMurray was sitting on the track waiting to run into him.

Jeff Gordon was in a similar incident with Jeff Burton in last year’s fall race at Texas that led to a fight between the two on the backstretch but weren’t penalized. He said he disagrees with the idea that NASCAR doesn’t have a clear line established for on-track incidents.

“You just saw it. That was the clear line,” he said. “When you know that you didn’t do the right thing, then you know there are consequences.”

One of those consequences is the danger of losing a sponsor.

Gordon said crew chiefs and drivers are expendable to some extent, but sponsors are absolutely not because they have the money that keeps the sport rolling. He said he thinks Busch will lose his sponsor if a similar situation happens again.

Finally, Gordon said he believes this might finally be the incident that wakes Busch up to where he will make some real changes in his decision-making.

“If this doesn’t teach him the ultimate lesson, than nothing will,” Gordon said. “I would certainly have to believe that this would be an eye-opening experience.”