INDIANAPOLIS — Kyle Busch said that he’s not talked to Corey LaJoie since their incident last weekend at Pocono and that there is no need to do so because LaJoie is “just a liar’’ and that “payback is coming.”
Busch made his comments Friday during an appearance on “The Pat McAfee Show” ahead of Cup practice at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
LaJoie clipped Busch in the left rear on a restart last weekend at Pocono, causing Busch to crash and collect others.
NASCAR will not penalize Corey LaJoie for contact with Kyle Busch at Pocono
“Two guys racing hard,” says NASCAR Sr. VP of Competition Elton Sawyer on the contact between Corey LaJoie and Kyle Busch.
On the restart, LaJoie went low and Busch blocked. As LaJoie came up the track, he hit Busch and spun him.
“He just clips me,” Busch told McAfee. “That’s like stupid. Like, what are we doing? We’re going 190 mph into that corner and we’re going to wreck each other?”
Asked by McAfee if Busch had talked to LaJoie, Busch said: “No. He texted me and then he called me and I didn’t even reach back out because he changed his story four times, so I’m like you’re just a liar. Like you wrecked me. Like I get it. It’s fine. Whatever. Payback is coming.”
Said LaJoie this week on his “Stacking Pennies” podcast: “I can tell you (the contact) wasn’t intentional.”
LaJoie said on the podcast that he wanted to talk to Busch.
“I do feel a conversation is warranted there,” LaJoie said. “I do feel worse about it on Monday than I did on Sunday night because now I see everything, it makes more sense to me. People that are on Reddit are probably having their own opinions on what happened, but that’s just how aggressive you have to be on restarts, you have to take momentum when you get it. I’ll take some blame there.
“I think that if Kyle pulls fifth gear and the momentum of his car doesn’t change as much then I won’t turn him around. I think we just roll around the corner.”
LaJoie said on his podcast that felt that Busch was in between gears when he hit the rev limiter chip and that slowed Busch’s momentum.
“When he throws the initial block, I still had some forward momentum in relation to him,” LaJoie said on his podcast. “But then it evened out. I was planning on trying to kind of blend back behind him, but at the same time I was committed to kind of fill and get behind him is when he was in the chip.
“So the amount he was in the chip, I didn’t anticipate his car losing that momentum relative to mine. I spun him out, took out several good cars behind me, which I do feel bad about on Monday.”
The incident only added to what has become a frustrating season for Busch, who has failed to finish five of the last seven races and enters Sunday’s race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway 102 points out of the final playoff spot.
“I’ve been wrecked in five of the last seven races by somebody,” Busch told McAfee. “Maybe I’m just slow and I’m in the way and they know I’m slow so I’m an easy guy to pass. They just want to knock me out.”
McAfee asked Busch if his cars are bad.
“Our cars have not been that great right now,” Busch said. “We’re working on it. We’ve come to a lot of things of what we’re kind of learning about and figuring out. Last year we were good. I joined RCR. We won three of the first 12 or 15 races. It was pretty good. We haven’t won since. It has been a little bit of a dry spell. So we’re working on it.”
Busch also took ownership for some of the performance this season.
“There’s definitely things that I’ve done in races that have kind of taken us out,” Busch said. “I’ve sped on pit road or I’ve made a restart mistake or I’ve picked the wrong lane on a restart. … There are things that I do that could be better. Ultimately it comes down to how fast your cars are.”
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