Kyle Busch calls new NASCAR driver racing style 'dirty' following Denny Hamlin, Kyle Larson dust-up
Kyle Busch believes NASCAR has a dirty racing problem, and the incident involving Denny Hamlin and Kyle Larson only proved his point.
After a controversial weekend at Pocono, Busch joined SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, where he explained his view on the incident between Hamlin and Larson. Evidently, the Richard Childress Racing wheelman believes his former teammate at Joe Gibbs Racing could’ve handled the situation differently.
“Could Denny have done that differently, and raced it out, and raced it clean, and done a side-draft down the backstretch, and seen where everybody kind of positioned in the next turn, and the next turn after that? Sure, there’s a way that you can run clean, and you can race side-by-side, but all you’re going to do is draw in the competition behind you,” Busch said. “Everybody is so close that you know, the guys — if you’re stuck side-by-side, you’re going to allow third place to jump into the picture, and they might even just go by the both of you and clear you, and now you’re still stuck side-by-side with that guy, and the third place guy is now the leader and he’s gone.”
However, Busch isn’t willing to place all the blame on Hamlin, as he believes drivers are simply being taught to race differently nowadays, which is leading to a dirtier driving style becoming prominent.
“It’s just a different dynamic,” started the two-time champion. “With the competition being closer and the cars being closer, you have to mess up the guy that you’re racing, that you’re around. You have to push him out of the groove. You have to pinch him tight, to make him tight. Then you have to pull a slide-job on him, to get in front of him and take his air. Like there’s all, it’s just, it’s racing. It’s just a different form of racing. I don’t know whether you call it dirty or whether you call it greedy, I think it’s both of those things, but you know, I’ve been seeing it a lot out of the younger generation. The kids and stuff like that, coming up through the ranks. How they do it in ARCA, how they’re doing it in the Trucks Series, how they’re doing it in Xfinity. Now it’s come up to the Cup Series. So it’s just this vicious cycle of how to race.
“It’s a hell of a lot more damn exciting I guess, than it once was in the Jeff Gordon, Mark Martin, Rusty Wallace, Bobby Labonte era, where you know, the racing was a lot cleaner. You have each other room, and if a faster car caught you, you let him go. You hope for the same favor later. Now it’s if they catch you, try to hold them off for as long as you can, and screw them up so they don’t go by you, because track position is everything.”
That’s an interesting perspective from Kyle Busch, and one that many fans aren’t going to enjoy hearing. Nevertheless, it seems as if this new style of driving is here to stay in NASCAR, until there’s some rule changes made to stop it.