FAIRLAWN, Va. — Kyle Busch left Pulaski County Motorsports Park in Virginia tickled to pieces with a third-round Camping World SRX victory while most everyone else left in pieces.
Literally.
It was the most crash-filled race in the three-year history of Superstar Racing Experience, won by the two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion but marred by a five-car crash that left several contenders predictably mad at 2003 CART champion Paul Tracy.
Chief amongst them was motorsports legend Ken Schrader.
“Tracy took out three or four of us, that’s all,” Schrader told Sportsnaut after the race. “Normal. Just a regular day.”
This was after he told ESPN pit road reporter Matt Yocum that he was done racing with Paul Tracy in SRX moving forward.
Tracy cleared himself onto Indianapolis 500 winner Josef Newgarden on the frontstretch with 12 laps remaining, the resulting pile-up collecting Schrader and Truck Series driver Hailie Deegan, saddling the FURY Race Cars crew that services the series with a lot of work before next week at Berlin Raceway.
For his part, Tracy was adamant that he was clear.
“Well, it was the end of the race, 10 laps to go or so,” Tracy told Sportsnaut after the incident. “Everyone was running hard. Newgarden and I were racing. He wasn’t willing to give up the position on the outside. I had half a car length in front of him and just got hooked and that was it. “
SRX race not without controversy
Even the race itself was decided by a bit of controversy. Busch took the lead on Lap 57 when he darted under Brad Keselowski and sent the 2012 Cup Series champion around to the back of the field. SRX drivers do not have spotters in their ears so Keselowski seemingly wasn’t aware of how deep Busch drove in.
“A little bit of that,” Busch said. “I don’t think he knew I was there. I had a nose in there, and I’m there, got a nose to his door and we came together. Definitely a product of the spotters, I think.”
Keselowski left the track as soon as the back gate opened and could not be reached for comment.
That incident happened right in front of three-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Tony Stewart, who is also a co-founder of the series, and he agreed with the assertion that the incident came down to the lack of spotters.
“That’s really what it is,” Stewart said. “We need to work on our window nets a little bit to make our mirrors a little more affective. When you’re aiming for your mark, looking out your windshield, it’s easy with these cars to not see someone under you and we can probably make that better.”
This marks back-to-back weeks that SRX leaves the race track withs several mangled race cars to fix. Stewart called a private drivers meeting on Thursday before the race to encourage cleaner driving standards at Pulaski County.
The heats were extremely clean and competitive, and the feature was too, prior to the incidents that tore up half the field.
“You wonder if they get the message,” Stewart said. “Most do, a majority do, and there is a very small minority, that I guess they haven’t gotten the message yet. We’ll get through this year.”
The carnage leaves FURY Race Cars co-founder Tony Eury Jr. with a lot of work to do over the next week before the race at Berlin but equal parts job security.
“It does make things hard on the guys who are traveling,” Eury said. “Six weeks in a row is tough, especially after a race like last week where we needed to bolt on new clips. Now, we have to replace two upper A frame clips and a rear clip.
“It’s just a strain. They have a 10-and-a-half-hour trip to the next track, got to get set-up and then get to working on the cars. But you know, it’s what we all sign up for and we know it’s a possibility.
“A couple of our guys are kicking ourselves because we thought we were going to get out clean with 10 laps to go or so and now we have six that need completely new bodies. It is what it is, but we also like putting a show on for the fans, also.”
That was a point articulated by series CEO Don Hawk, who says the crash damage is byproduct of the show they try to deliver for six weeks each summer.
“At the end of the day, I would rather have the cheering of the crowd,” Hawk said. “I’d rather get that SportsCenter moment — Kyle Busch wins a crash-filled race. We’ll take that trade-off. Our guys will get them put back together and they’ll mount these bulls again at Berlin.”
Because of the crashing over the final 15 laps, both Stewart and Clint Bowyer were able to get several looks at Busch on the restarts but ultimately were powerless to chase down the Rowdy Energy No. 51. Bowyer kept choosing to restart on the bottom, behind Busch, instead of the top side where Stewart ultimately went.
He’s kind of second guessing himself now.
“I just, I made that mistake at Stafford, went for it and tried,” Bowyer said. “Here, I was too tight on the outside when I tried it earlier in the heats. You have to stick with what got you there. I tried to get a better restart but (Kyle) jimmy-jacked around a little bit, which he should, but we didn’t get a good start.
“The other thing is (Kyle) was moving Stewart up on the start too so it was just going to take something crazy happening to give us a shot.”
And the end result was Busch adding a SRX victory to a career that has seen two Cup Series championships, an Xfinity Series championship, wins in all three NASCAR tours and numerous Super Late Model achievements.
It’s cool, a lot of fun,” Busch said. “It was nice to come out here and just have a nice race with the SRX guys, a lot of different personalities and backgrounds and to get a win against them here.”
SRX Pulaski County Results:
1. Kyle Busch
2. Clint Bowyer
3. Tony Stewart
4. Brad Keselowski
5. Ryan Newman
6. Helio Castroneves
7. Bobby Labonte
8. Hailie Deegan
9. Marco Andretti
10. Paul Tracy
11. Josef Newgarden
12. Ken Schrader
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.