It took three tries, but Kyle Busch finally found himself in the garage at Bristol. His day, like his car and hope of a third consecutive Sprint Cup race victory, was wrecked.
Usually stellar at Bristol Motor Speedway, Busch found nothing but setbacks in Sunday's Food City 500.
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Busch endured two right-front tire failures, an additional spin and a pair of speeding penalties on pit road.
What caused the failures?
"I have no idea," he said during the Fox broadcast. "We just kept getting tighter on the long runs, but not sure why that was. We had a really great car yesterday, fastest in practice and felt really good about things for today. It just wasn't meant to be."
And while he had overcome his setbacks repeatedly, Busch found nothing but disappointment in the end.
"It's not a day we were hoping for … We drove up from the back to the front a couple of times today and showed what we were made up; obviously it doesn't matter when you're in the garage," he said.
Busch took a hard hit early at Bristol, and then did it again. His car had minor damage in his first two incidents, but the third hard hit proved irrepairable.
Kyle Busch's car hits the wall.
Busch, winner of the past two Sprint Cup races, was running third when he appeared to have a right-front tire failure. His car slammed into the wall coming off Turn 2 on Lap 52. Busch was able to drive away from the incident but damaged to the right side of his car. Busch didn't lose much ground in the incident, though. He restarted 31st. Although the Bristol race is a short-track showdown, Busch has a lot of laps in which to rally back into contention.
Then, Busch got spun by Chris Buescher, bringing another caution on Lap 116. Buescher, a rookie, appeared to come into a turn too fast and couldn't avoid bashing Busch's backside.
And finally, Busch hit the wall hard just past the halfway point, heading to the garage for his crew to work on his car and settling for a finish of 38th.
Busch is a five-time Cup race winner at the track.