Stewart 'Dumped' Me, Kyle Busch Says

If Kyle Busch was hoping to avoid sounding sour about the finish of last Saturday's Coke Zero 400 at Daytona by not talking to the media after the event, he failed in his mission with his comments Thursday at Chicagoland Speedway.

In his weekly media visit, Busch revealed that he felt "dumped" by Tony Stewart, that he doesn't have feelings and that drivers that cause last-lap wrecks for the win should be penalized.

Of course, the comments about his incident with Stewart rang the loudest -- especially after Stewart said Wednesday that the two had talked about the last-lap crash that took the win from Busch and gave it to Stewart.

In last week's race at Daytona, Busch grabbed the lead from Stewart coming to the white flag, and when the two got back to the front-stretch, Stewart made a move to pass Busch, slightly nudged him and pulled alongside. Busch cut right to block Stewart and made contact, spinning his No. 18 hard into the outside wall to trigger a big wreck while Stewart went on to win.

"I got bumped from behind off of turn four which kind of sent me down low a little bit," said Busch, discussing how the wreck that left him with a 14th-place finish happened. "I gathered my stuff back up and tried to block but it was too late and Tony was already alongside."

Busch then was asked what could be done to prevent wrecks like the one that happened to finish last Saturday's race -- with driver input apparently not an option.

"I think NASCAR can take a step in looking at it," said Busch. "If the second-place driver quote-unquote dumps the leader, then black flag his a**. He doesn't get the win. If he comes up from behind and moves him out of the way and there's no wreck, then fine. He wins the race. If he's up along side the leader and dumps him, then black flag him and give the third-place car the win."

After all of that, did Busch feel like he was a victim of being "dumped"?

"It would be considered a dump," confirmed Busch.

However, the definition Busch gave for being dumped didn't quite match up with his assertion that he was a victim of such a move a week ago at the 2.5-mile restrictor-plate track. Per his own admission, Busch said that he "tried to block" Tony Stewart "but it was too late" and the two cars made contact.



How, then, Busch can claim that Stewart's move was unfair or unjust remains a mystery.

Just Wednesday, Stewart said that he and Busch had discussed the incident, and Thursday he was asked if he had a reaction to Busch's latest comments on the Daytona situation.

"We talked for about 30 minutes on the phone [earlier in the week] and I was very pleased with the conversation that we had," said Stewart. "That's the conversation I'm going off of. That's all I'm going to talk about Kyle."

Thursday's comments from Busch didn't exactly indicate that the conversation was received as well on his end.

"I don't really have feelings so it really didn't mean a whole lot," said Busch. "I thank him for at least checking on me to see if I was alive."

In the only Thursday practice for Saturday night's LifeLock.com 400, Busch was 14th fastest at the track he swept both the Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series races at in 2008. Stewart was 22nd fastest in the session led by Brian Vickers, Mark Martin, Scott Speed, Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson.

Qualifying is scheduled for 8:40 PM ET Thursday night on SPEED.