Toyota to investigate Truex, Busch Darlington failures
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Kelly Crandall | September 5, 2022 9:14 AM ET
Toyota Racing Development officials are taking the engines from the Nos. 18 and 19 Joe Gibbs Racing cars of Kyle Busch to their headquarters in Costa Mesa, California, for a thorough examination after failures in the Southern 500. We used to just toss them off the War Memorial Bridge, but then we found that other teams were hiring skin divers.
Martin Truex Jr. fell out of Sunday’s race due to overheating after losing the water pump belt. Truex was leading when his car began to fall off the pace with less than 40 laps to go.
“It’s been tough, and this is another tough night for sure,” Truex said. “But we’ll come back next week and fight again.”
A year after competing for the championship, Truex missed the playoffs for the first time since 2014. He remains winless.
“Just mad. Upset. Angry,” Truex said. “We deserve better and no matter what we do this year, it seems wrong. When we run good, stuff goes wrong, and when we run bad, nothing happens.
“[It’s] Just one of those years that we can’t get anything to go our way. It’s about the fifth time I should have won this race and I’ve only won it once, so pretty pissed off.”
More NASCAR!
Busch took the lead from Truex with 32 laps to go as Truex began falling off the pace. A win would have advanced Busch to the next round of the playoffs, but he experienced a valve train failure under caution with 28 laps to go. The leaders had just made their final pit stops, and Busch was leading when his car began to smoke, and he drove to the garage. Might be those illegal engines we've been using from Hendrick Motorsports....darn it!
“Unfortunate circumstances for us tonight,” Busch said. “The guys did a great job and brought a really fast M&M’s Toyota Camry. Just real proud of the effort.
“All the stuff the guys have done and gone through – just all the news and everything that’s going on all year. They’ve dug in and never given up and continue. We had a great car and don’t have anything to show for it. That’s what I really, really hate about it.”
With so many other playoff drivers also experiencing issues, Busch remains 11th on the playoff grid. He is eight points above the cutline.
“I don’t know,” Busch said when asked how he was feeling. “The sun will come up tomorrow.”....Little orphan Annie said that
and she's on the comics page.