Kyle Busch’s day, vocabulary improve with 3rd-place finish

Kyle Busch had a nice day at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. But you wouldn’t have known it from a radio transmission early in the Pennzoil 400.

“Same old (expletive) (expletive), every (expletive) week, every (expletive) year,” barked the two-time NASCAR champion and Las Vegas native Sunday when he was running closer to the middle of the pack than the front.

But after rallying for a third-place finish behind race winner Kyle Larson and Brad Keselowski, the driver of the No. 18 Ethel M Chocolates Toyota and his vocabulary were no longer a chocolate-covered mess.

“We were a little behind the eight ball at the green flag and just were super, super tight all day long,” Busch said after claiming his best finish of the young season on his hometown track. “Ben (Beshore, crew chief) and the guys made awesome adjustments — I was trying to give the best feedback I can (so) they can make good adjustments.”

Busch said with practice sessions canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic, teams are forced to rely on feedback from race simulators.

“That’s two weeks in a row where we’re not apples to apples,” he said of missing the setup before thanking his sponsor. “Just can’t say enough about Ethel M Chocolates. It’s a pleasure to have them on board here for the first time and to help them celebrate their 40th anniversary.”

The afternoon for Busch’s brother, Kurt, was just the opposite, going from good to not so good. After breaking an 0-for-21 streak at LVMS by winning last fall’s playoff race, Kurt Busch ran in the top 10 most of the day before sustaining body damage to his No. 1 Chevrolet in the third stage when Chase Elliott lost control. He finished 19th.

LVMS: action track

Follow-the-leader racing at LVMS seems to be a thing of the past, as evidenced by the number of passes and amount of two-wide racing — and three- and sometimes even four-wide on restarts — in the Truck and Xfinity Series races and again during the Cup Series run.

“Six cars under a blanket for the lead — can you believe it’s only lap 54?” play-by-play broadcaster Mike Joy enthused on the Fox TV broadcast about the cars being able to run low and high grooves and much closer together than in past races.

Carr barks signal

There was only a small audible from Derek Carr at the line of scrimmage — er, start-finish line — when it was time for the 38 drivers to fire their engines.

“Drivers, start you engines! Let’s go!” the Raiders quarterback roared, pumping his fist for effect while small sons Deker and Dallas watched pops give the traditional race-day command.

It was the second straight weekend an NFL quarterback sent the starting field on its way. Tua Tagovailoa of the Miami Dolphins performed the honor before last week’s race at Homestead-Miami Speedway in Florida.

Contact Ron Kantowski at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow @ronkantowski on Twitter.