Kyle Busch helped Hendrick Motorsports teammate Brian Vickers celebrate his first NASCAR Busch Series victory Saturday night at Indianapolis Raceway Park. But Busch didn’t like doing it in his street clothes. Busch, 18, qualified fourth and ran consistently in the top-10 before colliding with Ashton Lewis Jr. on the 127th lap in front of a near-capacity crowd estimated at 35,000. The collision ended the night for both. Busch finished 33rd in his second race in the series and Lewis, who was running 14th, placed 34th in the 43-car field. The first and only pit stop for the leaders occurred under a caution period that started on the 110th lap. Busch, a Las Vegas native living near Charlotte, N.C., was running seventh on lap 120, a lap after the restart. He tried to pass Lewis by driving a low line into the first turn. When Lewis appeared to veer to the left, Busch braked and slid into Lewis. “(Lewis) might have come down and when he did, I stomped the brake pedal and turned left. That got me loose,” Busch said. “I chased it and then I hit him.” A brief scuffle developed between members of the two pit crews, and Lewis complained Busch was too aggressive considering he was not racing to improve his position. “It was probably more my fault,” Busch said. “It was just after a restart and I could have been trying a little bit less. But I was trying to get back up to the front and pass as many cars as I could. At this race we learned we shouldn’t try that hard that soon after a restart. (Las Vegas Review Journal)(8-4-2003)
