Kyle Busch was running in the third position on Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway, and had just earned praise from NASCAR on FOX television analyst Kevin Harvick when the car snapped around and ended his chances to win the race.
The ole announcer’s jinx, Harvick conceded during his Happy Hour show on Monday.
“I was trying to brag on Kyle Busch right there,” Harvick said. “They had put themselves in a position, and we talked about their pit crew and their ranking. They did a great job on pit road to put themselves in position to have a chance to win the race, and the eight car was fast. Had a great sponsor on board with 7-Eleven this week, great brand, looked cool.
“Everybody’s rooting for Kyle Busch. Everybody wants Kyle Busch to win right now, and I was trying to give the guy some love. And mid-sentence, we’re backed into the fence off of Turn 4. But that just really seems to be the way that it’s going for this eight car right now, whether it’s on pit road with the speeding penalty or slow pit stop or a wheel coming off or spinning out. But we’ve seen this a few times out of Kyle in these positions. This week was no different. Wound up getting a little loose there off of Turn 4 and backed it in the fence.”
It’s been an especially challenging season for Busch when even his best runs result in misfortune like on Sunday. Busch went on to get crashed again driving his way through the field in the incident that began with a Brad Keselowski spin that collected Busch, Austin Cindric, Ty Dillon and Cole Custer.
Busch is 16th in the championship standings and just 12 points out of a playoff spot, behind Ricky Stenhouse Jr. but the what could have beens has ‘Rowdy Nation’ feeling as though the two-time champion should at least be comfortably in the playoffs.
