NASCAR: Busch slams parts failures after crash

Kyle Busch was the dominant driver of the Sprint Cup race at Bristol on Sunday but crashed from the lead after developing a mechanical problem on lap 358.

Busch first reported the issue shortly after a restart on lap 316, believing that his No. 18 Toyota had broken a rear shock. The problem got worse, cost him the lead, and then he spun shortly afterward. He was visibly upset upon climbing out the car and tossed his helmet into the cockpit after unhooking his HANS device.

Despite leading 529 laps at Bristol over his past five starts, he has an average finish of 30th during that span, and he believes there is a reliability issue developing at Gibbs and Toyota.

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"The last few times we've been here, we've had really fast M&M's Toyota Camrys and we haven't been able to finish," Busch said. "We've been having parts failures here, so it's something we've got to address and fix. I'm really tired of losing races here with parts falling apart, so they'll hear about it on Tuesday."

Busch wasn't sure exactly what part broke, but knew it was getting worse and worse until he just couldn't hold on to it any longer.

"It finally did break and it was breaking, but it finally did break and I couldn't hold onto it there and it spun out and then spun out the wrong way," Busch said. "It's frustrating. We've had really, really fast race cars here. The guys do a great job setting them up, but, man, we've got parts failures, you know?

"You can't have parts failures in this business. That's stupid. My Camrys have been fast. We've just got to stop making stupid mistakes that take us out of races."

Toyota is believed to have found an advantage in the rear-end of their cars this season, so it's somewhat ironic that Busch's frustration is with an element of TRD's strength. He finished 38th but remains the second seed on the Chase Grid with three races remaining in the regular season.

He fell from fourth to sixth in the overall championship standings.