As Kyle Busch entered turn two on lap 53 at Kansas, the front of his #18 Toyota made contact with the rear of the #00 Toyota of David Reutimann. The touch sent Reutimann spinning into the SAFER Barrier on the outside of turn two. Busch continued on and was still in the top-10 on lap 156 when he had another encounter with Reutimann. As the duo exited turn two with Busch on the high side and Reutimanns car on the low side, Reutimanns car moved up and slammed into the left side of Buschs machine, causing severe damage to the rear of the M&Ms Toyota. Reutimann’s car spun and was much more damaged and spent time in the garage, finishing 35th, 11 laps down. Some quotes:
Michael Waltrip quote:‘There are 43 drivers on the race track each Sunday and there is no delineation between Chase participants and non-Chase participants when it comes to respect. Everyone at Michael Waltrip Racing is working hard to deliver great results to our owners, employees and sponsors. All organizations have a lot at stake each week as we are all measured by our performance and finishing position. When David Reutimanns chance to compete for a win at Kansas was taken away, it set off a series of events that have been well documented. I stand behind David because his record of sportsmanship is flawless. It is the duty of MWRs drivers to deliver for Toyota and our other partners, and I expect them to be treated fairly while doing so.’Â(MWR)
Reutimann quote: ‘I dont care if youre in the Chase or not, you need to think about who youre running over when youre running over them. I dont care who you are. If youre in the Chase, you have as much responsibility to drive with respect as I do to everybody else. If you guys want me to feel bad about what happened today, I feel bad, yeah, that our car got wrecked and it ruined our day. Thats what I feel bad about. He just rolled over me. Im on the bottom of the race track and he had the whole top of the race track to go to, and he run over me. I got wrecked.’Â(MWR)
Busch quote: ‘Its just really unfortunate,’ Busch said. ‘These guys work their butts off to put ourselves in the Chase and to have the opportunity to try to go after a championship and to have it end up like it did today is disappointing. The guy (Reutimann) was loose. He said it on the radio. He slid up off the bottom and I got into him unintentionally and just spun him out. My fault 100%, but then the retaliation to a guy thats in the Chase thats racing for something’¦ hell be here next year. He couldve wrecked me in any of the first 26 races next year. That wouldve been fine. Its just hard to swallow something like a day like today where we had a solid top-five car going (M&M’s Racing)(10-4-2010)
