A NASCAR competition official said Tuesday that the sanctioning body would review a spin by Kyle Busch during last Friday’s Camping World Truck Series event, hinting that a more stringent stance on incidents that prompt caution periods may be coming.
A flat tire forced Busch’s No. 51 Toyota to slow during Friday’s Bucked Up 200 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The truck spun as he drove on the track’s apron, forcing a yellow flag on the 90th of 134 laps.
Busch recovered to finish second behind teammate John Hunter Nemechek. The NASCAR Cup Series regular, who is also a Camping World Trucks team owner, declined to comment on any details of the spin in a post-race Zoom video conference.
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Scott Miller, NASCAR senior vice president of competition, addressed the issue in a Tuesday morning appearance on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, saying that determining a driver’s intent in an incident was a difficult judgment to make.
“Those are tough calls,” Miller told SiriusXM. “That obviously came up again this weekend. You know, it‘s hard for us to know what is going on inside the car, but we have our competition meeting, and I‘m sure there will be discussions on the particular one that prompted that question and we‘ll kind of review it.
“But what we can‘t let happen, and what we will probably be more inclined to do moving forward is, having a flat tire and trying to get back to pit road is not an excuse to spin out. So if we have to crack down a little bit harder on those things happening so that doesn‘t become a trend, we will certainly react to that.”
NASCAR officials have penalized drivers in the past after they publicly admitted their intent to trigger a caution flag. Bubba Wallace (in 2019) and Dale Earnhardt Jr. (2004) were each hit with fines and points deductions in the Cup Series standings after their post-spin confessions.