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Larson, Busch Out Early In Goodyear 400 At Darlington Raceway

by Hunter Thomas May 8, 2022 0 comments

DARLINGTON, S.C. – Race favorites, Kyle Larson and Kyle Busch have retired from the Goodyear 400 after finding trouble early at Darlington Raceway.

Both drivers have found success at Darlington Raceway. Larson has finished runner-up in the past three NASCAR Cup Series races at Darlington, and Kyle Busch is a past winner (2008) at the track, Too Tough To Tame.

Larson started second and led 30 laps in Stage 1, but on Lap 56, he spun in Turn 4 while battling Kyle Busch for the second position. Luckily, he kept his Hendrick Motorsports No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet off the wall and continued for a short while. Eventually, Larson lost power, and the team couldn’t get the car re-fired. When Larson spun, he did roll backwards, but Larson’s crew said that probably wasn’t the issue with the mechanical failure.

“With these cars, you don’t want to lock the tires up because you’ll get a flat and it really tears your car up,” Larson said. “I definitely rolled backwards some. That was my concern with why we blew up, but they said that probably didn’t have anything to do with it.

“Bummer. Our No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet was super good today, so that’s promising. I feel like maybe we hit on something here this weekend. I hate that we’re not going to get the finish that we deserve, but I’m proud of my team for the car they brought today.”

As for Kyle Busch, he was also having a promising day. The driver of the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 18 M&M’s Toyota started fifth, led laps and finished out Stage 1 in the third position, but in Stage 2, he retired from the race after an accident with Brad Keselowski on Lap 122. Keselowski blew a right-front tire, and that’s what caused him to pound the outside wall exiting Turn 2. Keselowski bounced off the wall, and collected Busch who had nowhere to go.

“Just the 6 (Brad Keselowski) blew a right-front tire coming off of turn two,” Busch said. “I had nowhere to go and just got collected up in something not of our doing. It’s frustrating. We had a good M&M’s Camry and it was nice to be able to run in the top-five and lead some laps there. Just felt like we were trying to debate on the setup there between the short run versus the long run and where we wanted to be good and what all was going to pay dividends at the end of the day.”

The Goodyear 400 continues to air live on FS1 with the first two stages complete.