Kyle Busch recovered from a pit road speeding penalty at the end of the second stage of Sunday’s GEICO 500, but he couldn’t shake off the effects of a 14-car wreck with 22 laps left in the race.
Busch came to Talladega Superspeedway seeking a fourth straight victory in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. Instead, he fell victim to the same ‘Talladega curse’ that ended the winning streaks of three NASCAR Hall of Famers.
Bobby Allison (1972), Dale Earnhardt (1987) and Rusty Wallace (1993) all came to Talladega with victory strings of three races or more and failed to extend their streaks at Talladega. Now you can add Kyle Busch to that list.
“Once we got in that wreck, it was over, but we had a decent car up until then,” said Busch, who finished 13th. “We got the car handling better all day long, and every adjustment we made to it was an improvement and gave us more on the race track, but we just lack speedway speed.”
Both Busch and Kevin Harvick have won three consecutive races this season. Harvick’s string ran out at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California.