Kyle Busch ended up on the short end of a battle with brother Kurt for the win in Saturday night’s Quaker State 400 at Kentucky Speedway.
The Busch brothers both had a shot to take in the checkered flag in an overtime sprint to the finish. Once they were able to clear Erik Jones who was also in the mix on the final lap they battled side by side for the top spot. Kurt was finally able to get around Kyle on the outside through the final corner but not before sliding up near the wall. However he was able to gather his car back in and drove across the finish line first leaving Kyle to settle for the runner-up position.
“Glad it was a thriller,” Busch said. “It’s just unfortunate we were on the wrong end of the deal for everybody at M&Ms and Toyota, Interstate Batteries, all the folks that get us to where we’re at. Congratulations to Kurt (Busch) and Chip (Ganassi) and Monster, all the guys over there.
“It’s obviously cool to put on great races and great finishes and I’ve been a part of a lot of them and not very many, in fact none with my brother like that. That was a first. No hard feelings.”
Busch relived the last lap dash to the finish and what ultimately led to him following his older brother to the checkered flag.
“Kurt got on my door off of (Turn) 2 there and got a run down the backstretch and I didn’t have enough of a run back on him into 3 to clear him soon enough,” he explained. “I know I cleared him, but I knew I wasn’t going to make the exit if I tried to jump up in front of him and mess up his air, so I just tried to get as close as I could to him and side draft him.
“He just had too much momentum going by me on the outside. I was just way too tight. We didn’t make good adjustments there on the last run, so that’s why we lost the lead to the 22 (Joey Logano) and ultimately weren’t in the right position to be able to win the race.”
