Kyle Busch slams Joey Logano, other lapped drivers for being in the way at Bristol

Welcome to FTW’s NASCAR Feud of the Week, where we provide a detailed breakdown of the latest absurd, funny and sometimes legitimate controversies and issues within the racing world.

Kyle Busch got stuck in traffic Saturday night at Bristol Motor Speedway and wasn’t exactly thrilled about it, especially as he’s still looking for his first win of the season.

After starting from the back of the field in the Bass Pro Shops Night Race because his car failed inspection twice, Busch quickly made his way toward the front at his best track. By Lap 84 of 500 total at the .533-mile Tennessee short track, he was running in the top 10, and early in the second stage, he took the lead for the first time.

Busch ended up leading 159 laps Saturday night and still advanced out of the Round of 16 into the Round of 12 of the playoffs. But he couldn’t hold off eventual winner Kevin Harvick, who won his ninth race of the season and led 226 laps.

Harvick took the lead from Busch for the final time with 32 laps remaining, and, after finishing second, Busch blamed his inability to pass Harvick and regain the lead on the lapped cars creating traffic. And when only six cars finished on the lead lap, that’s a lot of lapped traffic Busch and the others had to deal with.

The defending NASCAR champion is still winless in 2020 and was frustrated after being the runner-up. He said Bristol “felt like this was one of our greater shots to win.”

But on the track immediately after the race, Busch also expressed his frustration for lapped cars, singling out Joey Logano, who finished 11th and two laps down:

“Lapped cars were definitely a problem. It’s part of racing. You have to try to get around them where you can and there was just no room for me to do what I needed to do with a couple of those opportunities to get past them. …

“Gotta go where they ain’t, and man, where they are, you want to be. We got the lead from there on the last run, and just got stuck with , as usual, him being a -head. Then the last lap, I don’t even know who the hell the black car was that just stopped on the backstretch. That’s it, we lost.”

Later during his post-race Zoom press conference, Busch continued to air his grievances with lapped drivers, particularly Logano, Joey Gase and Garrett Smithley.

About Logano, Busch added: “He’s nobody’s friend for a reason, so there you have it.”

When asked about the possibility of dumping Harvick during the final laps, Busch said, “It actually never crossed my mind.” But then he added how he hoped the closing laps would play out and continued complaining about traffic:

“If that lap car wasn’t there, I would have blown it in on the outside or the inside, and maybe we would have banged each other’s doors or whatever and had a greater finish to the checkered. But some of them dip- kids don’t know what the hell they’re doing or where they’re at and can’t stay out of the way. Nothing like a Gase and a Smithley.”

Busch is one of 12 drivers to advance to the next round in the playoffs, and he’s currently 10th in the standings. The first of three races in the Round of 12 is at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on September 27.

When asked how he feels about starting the next round at his “home” track, Busch didn’t share a lot of optimism: “We’ll be eliminated next round, so don’t care.”