Kyle Busch content in third after missing late chance to move up
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — When his teammate jumped to the outside line on the next-to-last lap of the Daytona 500, Kyle Busch thought of doing the same thing. But in the time it took to think it, the chance disappeared.
Instead, Busch held his No. 18 Toyota on the low line and followed Martin Truex Jr. to a third-place finish as Busch’s Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin beat Truex by 0.011 seconds for the closest finish in Daytona 500 history.
"Once (Hamlin) did it, I swore I thought about doing it," Busch said of Hamlin’s move to the outside. "Once I thought about doing it and didn't do it, it was too late. That was it. You can't think that long and not make the move at the same time."
As Hamlin began to close on the lead, Matt Kenseth moved up the track in an attempt to block. As the field roared through Turn 3 and into Turn 4, the two cars touched. Kenseth bobbled and dropped back, and Hamlin battled with Truex — with Busch directly behind — to the finish line.
"I missed my opportunity, but that’s racing," Busch said. "That's how it goes. It got a little hectic there in 3 and 4. I wasn't sure we were all going to make it through there with as dicey as it got."
The focus in the JGR pits leading up to the final restart with 12 laps remaining was simple: Be sure one of the team’s cars wins the race. With Kenseth, Hamlin, Busch and Carl Edwards all in contention, it seemed likely.
But with five laps remaining, Busch decided it was a free-for-all. And, considering the high groove hadn’t been as quick as the low groove throughout the race, he decided to stay low.
"I figured it was five to go that it was every man for himself," Busch said. "So I still stuck in line there and was trying to continue to stay on the bottom. I didn't know if the outside was ever going to get going."
Disappointing finish aside, Busch is in a much better position than he was last year, when he sustained injuries in a crash during the Xfinity race the day before and watched the 500 from a room at Halifax Health Medical Center a few blocks from the speedway.
"It's definitely a lot better being in the race where I'm supposed to be rather than on the sidelines watching across the street," Busch said. "Three-hundred sixty-five days later, this could have gone two spots better and it would have been crazy to think of where we were. But we finished third. It's my best finish in the Daytona 500 thus far. We'll take that."
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