Kurt Busch throws brother Kyle Busch under bus after inconsistent NASCAR Texas penalty ruling

NASCAR turned some heads with its penalty enforcement coming off the weekend at Texas Motor Speedway. It hit Ryan Preece with a penalty for wrecking Ty Gibbs but did not penalize Kyle Busch for a similar wreck of John Hunter Nemechek.

Even Busch’s brother, Kurt Busch, was a bit shocked. He thought if Preece had been penalized surely his brother had earned some discipline from NASCAR too.

But as the governing body explained, part of what earned Ryan Preece the penalty vs. Kyle Busch was that he strongly intimated he was going to wreck Gibbs on his radio. Busch did not do the same before dumping Nemechek.

“Well that’s the problem of the problem,” Kurt Busch said on the Door Bumper Clear podcast on Monday. “NASCAR shouldn’t go off of what someone says on the radio. They should be able to still look at the eyeball test.”

He took it one step further, too. He said Kyle Busch should have been penalized.

“What my brother did to John Hunter was the same exact thing,” the elder Busch noted. “And there could have been maybe one or two words. Now you’re in like a court room. You may have or you could have… you change one little word in a sentence. But to have Preece penalized and not my brother, I mean I have no problem saying it. They both should have been in the same doghouse, personally.”

Of course, that Kyle Busch escaped penalty because he kept his mouth shut is nothing new for NASCAR. Give yourself a chance by not piping up and you can potentially wiggle off the hook.

Kurt Busch has been on the wrong end of that one before. He explained a story from back in his racing days.

“There was an All-Star race where I think it was Dale Jr. won or Newman won, and I needed a yellow, so I wrecked Robby Gordon late in the race,” Busch said. “And I didn’t say anything, but the yellow came out, we got another set of tires. And I still wasn’t quick enough to catch them. I think it was the year Jr. one. What was it, ’02?

“Anyway, I was on a radio show Tuesday afterwards. I can’t remember what show it was, it could have been like 106.5 downtown. I was just off guard or it was early morning, I said, ‘Oh yeah, I wrecked him. I was just looking for a yellow because I needed one more shot, I wanted one more shot.’ On Wednesday, NASCAR issued me a $100,000 penalty. Docked points. Even though it was the All-Star race. And then Richard Childress wanted to fight me by Friday.”

Moral of the story: Kyle Busch had it right when he didn’t say anything explicit about wrecking John Hunter Nemechek. It likely saved him a fine and some valuable points.