Kyle Petty calls Chris Buescher's comments on NASCAR Playoffs 'sour grapes'

Last night, Chris Buescher saw his hopes of making the NASCAR Playoffs fade away as Chase Briscoe had the race of his life and won the Southern 500. It was his postrace comments that made Kyle Petty call the RFK Racing driver out for “sour grapes.”

During the postrace interview on pit road, Chris Buescher drew the ire of Kyle Petty for his comments on the NASCAR Playoff system. Buescher mentioned how he and his team have outperformed many of the playoff drivers.

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“Yeah just uh, I don’t know. Feel like we did what for the most part what we needed to do today,” Buescher said. “Got back in contention there at the end and had a decent finish out of it. Just uh, didn’t quite get it done again and now we are on the outside looking in. Unfortunately it’s just the system we’re all playing in. We’ve had such a great year, everyone at RFK works so hard. We’ve been so fast, we’ve outrun so many of these cars that are going to get to run for a championship but that’s the system and we didn’t work it right.”

In the postrace breakdown, Kyle Petty took issue with those comments from Chris Buescher. After 26 races, 10 years of the NASCAR Playoffs as they exist now, these drivers know the deal. No use in questioning it now.

“Sour grapes. They started in February and knew what the system was. You know what stage points are, you know what you have to do to run up front and win. They’ve run well they just haven’t won races,” Petty explained.

Now, many fans took issue with this comment. It isn’t insulting Chris Buescher and his driving. In fact, Petty agreed, they have done well, but they haven’t won. His point is, you knew the system at the beginning of the year, you knew that points would be thin at the end of the regular season. It happens every season.

So, if you go into the year knowing the deal, can you really complain? It’s not like Buescher is the only driver in the top-16 in points that didn’t make the postseason.

When you look at the standings, Bubba Wallace, Ross Chastain, and Kyle Busch also missed out despite having more points than others in the postseason.

When you look at the body of work for the drivers in the NASCAR Playoffs, besides Harrison Burton, they are all top-20 in points. Everyone keeps talking about putting a top-30 or top-25 limit on drivers making the playoffs. Well, it seems that for the most part, it self-policed itself this season.

Did Kyle Petty get too harsh with Chris Buescher here?