{"id":646424,"date":"2026-05-04T04:05:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T04:05:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/646424\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T04:05:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T04:05:11","slug":"busch-lays-blame-on-nemechek","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/646424\/","title":{"rendered":"Busch Lays Blame on Nemechek"},"content":{"rendered":"

While the big story Sunday may have been Chase Elliott\u2019s second win of the season at Texas Motor Speedway, there were plenty of other stories deeper in the field.<\/p>\n

\"nascarLogan Riely\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Kyle Busch ran inside the top 10 much of the day at Texas.<\/p>\n

Kyle Busch Nearly Has Top-10 Until John Hunter Nemechek Got Involved<\/p>\n

Kyle Busch, who appeared headed for his best run this season, had it foiled on the final lap when he got into a door banging incident with John Hunter Nemechek and sent Nemechek spinning. <\/p>\n

Busch ended up 20th and Nemechek 21st.<\/p>\n

After the race, Busch posted on X, \u201cI did not start this. The 42 apparently doesn\u2019t know where the RS of his car is and where he is in relation to the outside wall. There was 2 ft outside him and I was judging my left side tires to the hash marks. Always know who your racing beside.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nemechek posted on X, \u201cnot freaking clear. great day going, and just got wrecked. What an ass.\u201d<\/p>\n

Busch, who had Andy Street replace Jim Pohlman as his crew chief just days before the event, qualified sixth and often ran in the top 10 in the Wurth 400 at Texas Motor Speedway. <\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, we ended up with right-front damage after contact battling for position on the final lap,\u201d Busch said. \u201cIt turned out top-10 day into a 20th-place result.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"nascarJames Gilbert\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Both Spire Motorsports drivers started on the front row Sunday in Texas. <\/p>\n

Two Top 10s For Spire Motorsports<\/p>\n

After starting on the front row, Carson Hocevar and Daniel Suarez put together top-10 finishes. Hocevar, the Wurth 400 pole winner, finished seventh, while Suarez took sixth. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis weekend was a perfect example of having a fast race car. We just had a lot of things go against us, like the tire yesterday (Saturday) in practice,\u201d Suarez said. \u201cToday, the first run of the race, we just really struggled. The car had potential, we just struggled quite a bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hocevar\u2019s seventh-place was his best ever at Texas Motor Speedway in NASCAR\u2019s Cup Series. He also was third in most laps led, setting the pace on five occasions for 40 laps. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe finished second in Stage 1 and put ourselves in a good spot to start Stage 2,\u201d Hocevar said. \u201cThen get that caution and that put us behind the eight ball. I had to restart in the 20s. We made an adjustment and we probably shouldn\u2019t have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hocevar, who earned his first career victory a week ago at Talladega, is now sixth in the driver standings.<\/p>\n

\"nascarJames Gilbert\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Alex Bowman finished third for the second consecutive week. <\/p>\n

Another Top 5 For Bowman<\/p>\n

After a tough start to the season due to issues with vertigo, Alex Bowman has put together back-to-back third-place finishes. Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway he finished third to Hendrick Motorsports teammate Chase Elliott.<\/p>\n

Bowman said his run in the 267-lap race felt good. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe got way better from where we unloaded and definitely momentum headed in the right direction,\u201d Bowman said.<\/p>\n

Buescher Leads Ford Camp <\/p>\n

Once again, an RFK Racing driver was the top performing Ford with Chris Buescher claiming fifth, a career best for him at his home track, Texas Motor Speedway. <\/p>\n

\u201cOur mile-and-a half (tracks) have been really strong,\u201d Buescher said. \u201cThis is three now with top 10s.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"nascarJames Gilbert\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Chris Buescher was the highest finishing Ford. <\/p>\n

Buescher placed sixth at Las Vegas and 10that Kansas. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re scratching at the door,\u201d Buescher continued. \u201cA little bit of work to do yet, but it feels good. It\u2019s been rough here (Texas) through the years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Buescher has now had back-to-back top fives and three straight top 10s. <\/p>\n

All three RFK Racing drivers have point positions that would get them into the post-season. Buescher is fifth in the driver standings, Brad Keselowski is ninth and Ryan Preece is 12th. Preece and Tyler Reddick are the only two drivers to finish every race this season on the lead lap. <\/p>\n

23XI Racing Enjoys a Stellar Day <\/p>\n

Tyler Reddick and Bubba Wallace produced top-10 finishes in Texas Motor Speedway\u2019s Wurth 400 Sunday, while Corey Heim and Riley Herbst led laps in another top showing by title contender 23XI Racing.<\/p>\n

Reddick finished fourth for his eighth top 10 in the season\u2019s first 11 races after his late-race bid for a victory fell short. When teammate Heim spun on lap 257 of the 267-lap race, Reddick pitted for two tires. Reddick restarted ninth with four laps remaining but ran out of time before he could challenge eventual winner Chase Elliott.<\/p>\n

\"nascarLogan Riely\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Reddick finished fourth for his eighth top 10 in the season\u2019s first 11 races.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust had a couple passes that took a little longer than they needed to and that was the difference,\u201d Reddick said. \u201cI don\u2019t know if we would\u2019ve got back to the lead, but I think if we played it perfectly, we could\u2019ve got second.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were all very close with the 9 and the 11 (Denny Hamlin). I was hoping I was going to have a little bit of speed late in the run to close and it didn\u2019t really happen for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wallace had to come from the rear of the field for his ninth-place finish, his sixth top 10 in 11 races this season. He crashed in practice and had to go to a backup car. <\/p>\n

Herbst narrowly missed getting his second top 10 this year. He led one lap before settling for an 11th-place finish. <\/p>\n

Even though Heim finished 31st due to a late-race spin, he led twice for 69 laps. That was the second most laps led in the event. Winner Chase Elliott was the race\u2019s top lap leader, setting the pace on four occasions for 87 laps. <\/p>\n

Pit Road Incidents Take Their Toll<\/p>\n

Joey Logano, Cole Custer and Kyle Larson had their days foiled on pit road during a caution period that consumed laps 93-98.<\/p>\n

Logano was eliminated from the race eventually won by Chase Elliott when he slammed into Custer in the rear after the Haas Factory Team driver slowed to allow Ty Gibbs to exit his pit. Larson sustained damage to his Chevrolet when he hit Chase Briscoe who was pulling out of his pit after receiving two tires.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe (Custer) just stopped and I had nowhere I could go,\u201d said Logano, who was credited with a 37th-place finish in the 38-car field.<\/p>\n

Logano has now finished 30th or worse in five of the season\u2019s first 11 races. His last top 10 was a seventh-place finish at Bristol in April. He is 17th in the driver standings, one position below the cutline for The Chase.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a tough season,\u201d Logano commented.<\/p>\n

Custer finished 35th and Larson placed 34th. Gibbs spun in turn three on lap 101 after getting tagged by Ryan Preece. He finished 36th.<\/p>\n

Wrong Place, Wrong Time For Bell<\/p>\n

Just as Christopher Bell thought his season was taking an uphill swing, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time.<\/p>\n

On lap 68 of the 267-lap race, Todd Gilliland\u2019s Ford spun off turn four. When he came across the track, he clipped Bell who was leading the event. The incident eliminated Bell from the race and relegated him to a last-place finish in the 38-car field. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was another one of those 50-50 calls,\u201d Bell said. \u201cMe and Denny (Hamlin) were side-by-side, and I saw him (Gilliland) spinning. Denny lifted and I thought that I could shoot the gap on the bottom. I thought I did shoot the gap on the bottom, but I got clipped.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bell, who\u2019s 13th in the driver standings, hasn\u2019t recorded a top-15 finish in five of the last six races. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to turn around at some point,\u201d said Bell, who led 22 laps before exiting the race.
<\/p>\n

\"Lettermark\"<\/p>\n

A North Carolina native, Deb Williams is an award-winning motorsports journalist who is in her fourth decade covering auto racing. In addition to covering the sport for United Press International, she has written motorsports articles for several newspapers, magazines and websites including espnW.com<\/a>, USA Today, and The Charlotte Observer. Her awards include the American Motorsports Media Award of Excellence, two-time National Motorsports Press Association writer of the year, and two-time recipient of the Russ Catlin award. She also has won an award in the North Carolina Press Association\u2019s sports feature category.\u00a0 During her career, Deb has been managing editor of GT Motorsports magazine and was with Winston Cup Scene and NASCAR Winston Cup Scene for 18 years, serving as the publication\u2019s editor for 10 years. In 2024 she was inducted into the NMPA Hall of Fame.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While the big story Sunday may have been Chase Elliott\u2019s second win of the season at Texas Motor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":646425,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82,45082],"class_list":["post-646424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nascar","tag-sports","tag-texas-motor-speedway"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=646424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/646425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=646424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=646424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=646424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}