Kyle Busch talks LaJoie, RCR performance ahead of milestone 700th Cup start

SPEEDWAY, Ind. — Kyle Busch said Saturday that he still hadn’t spoken with Corey LaJoie after their incident last weekend at Pocono Raceway, reiterating what he’d mentioned the day before in an appearance with ESPN’s Pat McAfee. That same appearance included a warning of “payback is coming,” suggesting that talk alone may not mend those torn fences.

The incident that wiped out Busch’s No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet, prolonging one of the worst stretches of his decorated NASCAR Cup Series career, was top of mind among the topics for the two-time champion’s arrival at Indianapolis Motor Speedway this weekend. He is due to make his 700th Cup Series start in Sunday’s Brickyard 400 (2:30 p.m. ET, NBC, NBC Sports App, IMS Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), but that milestone is tempered by a sharp sag in the standings — a stretch that’s diminished his bid for a playoff spot.

LaJoie was at the center of Saturday’s pre-race talking points, and Busch said on ESPN that he wasn’t buying his explanations.

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Busch’s career began during a time when veterans would occasionally pull an overly rambunctious driver aside for consultation, but that increasingly feels like a bygone era of self-policing. Asked if a on-track response was the answer, Busch was noncommittal.

“No, I don’t feel like I’m being backed in a corner where I have to respond,” Busch said. “Just, racing’s racing and if stuff happens, stuff happens.”

Instead of a conversation with LaJoie, Busch picked up on the suggestion that the incident could be a teaching moment for his 9-year-old son, Brexton, an aspiring racer in the youth circuits.

“I don’t know. I guess, just showing him and telling him about things that are OK in instances in which when you’re racing together, you’re going to have close quarters, you’re going to have contact, things like that,” Busch said. “But when you have instances in which you get drove over, then those are moments that aren’t acceptable as a race driver, whether you’re doing or receiving.”

Busch said that a friendly relationship with McAfee provided a comfort zone on the free-wheeling show. It also helped cool the temperature of the interview’s hot seat. “He could have gotten a lot further and probably been a lot worse in his questions and his prodding,” Busch said, “but we’ve got good respect for one another, so I felt like it was good and fair.”

MORE: Busch on McAfee: ‘Payback’s coming’

LaJoie responded after his qualifying lap Saturday, telling The Athletic that Busch should answer his phone to hear his side, rather than go on a popular talk show to air his grievances. He also said that his perception of the incident did change after seeing replays of their contact. “The moral of the story at Pocono was I crashed him bigger than s—, but it wasn‘t intentional,” LaJoie told Jeff Gluck. “The original story that I saw out of the windshield and was told from (crew chief Ryan) Sparks was my perception. After I got a chance to look at the replay and saw the in-car cameras, I saw what happened — but it never was intentional in the first place and that remains the case. So for him to say I changed my story ‘four times’ and I‘m a liar pisses me off.”

Beside the conflict, there’s the matter of Busch’s performance and how to boost it within the Childress-owned organization. Busch has dipped to 18th in the Cup Series standings, fading to 102 points behind the provisional elimination line to make the 16-driver postseason. His teammate, Austin Dillon, ranks 32nd.

Andy Petree announced his retirement as an RCR competition executive on June 25, a move that shifted Keith Rodden to an interim competition director role. Busch said two weeks ago in Chicago that he wasn’t pushing for further changes, but that he’d had discussions with his team owner about several specific areas where the organization could improve. Saturday, Busch indicated that RCR had missed out on one recent competition hire, but that he’d been kept in the loop about next steps.

“It would be kind of nice to know, I guess, and they have been bringing me into the fold of some of the names and whatnot that they’re looking at,” Busch said. “But honestly, besides the people that I’ve worked with before, I don’t know anything about the people that I’ve never worked with before, you know. So that’s kind of hard to judge their character, their work ethic, their genius level and all that.”

Busch is scheduled to start 34th in the 39-car field for Sunday’s 400-miler, putting a steep climb in front of him to reach a third Brickyard crown to match his back-to-back wins here in 2015-16 with Joe Gibbs Racing. He’s at least relishing the return to Indy’s traditional 2.5-mile configuration after three years of using the combined oval-road course layout, and hoping to make the most of his milestone start.

“I mean, the Brickyard’s great,” said Busch, who will become just the 20th driver to reach 700 Cup Series appearance. “This is what we all wanted to have here and be here and doing is racing the oval, but the road course is what we had for the last few years, but now we’re back on the oval. So I think everybody’s gotten a little bit more excitement around that, and hopefully the fans show their excitement around that and know if they’ll come out and support it. But other than that, trying to go for a win. We’ve got a long way to go, and we’ll see what happens.”