NASCAR explains Busch’s 4th place restart at Nashville

Richard Childress Racing driver Kyle Busch was not considered to be part of the NASCAR Overtime restart wreck at Nashville Superspeedway, according to NASCAR Cup Series Managing Director Brad Moran, who clarified this in a Tuesday radio interview with SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

Although Busch’s No. 8 RCR Chevrolet did brush against the wall following an incident between Kyle Larson and Ross Chastain during the second of a record-setting five overtimes, Busch was positioned fourth for the subsequent green flag. This was despite him slowing down to avoid the incident and being overtaken by other cars in the process.

“It’s not so much getting his spot back. His spots weren’t taken away,” Moran said. “Our rule clearly states that you must maintain a reasonable speed — reasonable speed for what track conditions are at the time. We don’t want to encourage drivers to stay on the gas and just bang their way through. What he did was he avoided the incident. We deemed him not involved in that incident. He didn’t stop. If he stopped, he probably would have ended up toward the back of the field.

“He was scored in the fourth-place position when that caution came out, and he didn’t get into the 1 (of Chastain) or the 5 (of Larson). Made very sight contact with the wall. We would deem that as not being involved in the incident, and that’s why he was able to restart where he was scored.”

The decision was also made by scoring-loop data, which NASCAR officials track in real time during the race, showing Busch in fourth place at the moment of the incident.