NASCAR clap back at Kyle Busch after Daytona 500 criticism

Two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Kyle Busch has received a response from the organisation's senior vice president of competition after his controversial comments following an incident at the Daytona 500 last weekend.

After a rainy and rather dramatic race at the iconic track, William Byron came out on top at Daytona International Speedway, surviving a massive last-lap wreck to take his second consecutive victory.

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At the age of 27, Byron became the fifth driver to defend his victory at the Great American Race, winning back-to-back years.

The 2025 edition of the race was action-packed and ended with a huge crash, but the heartbreak for Busch came on lap 186 when his #8 car was also collected among the pack despite not being involved in the initial hit.

Having been in contention for his first Daytona 500 victory before the unfortunate incident, Busch appeared clearly frustrated at the result in his post-race interviews, the Richard Childress Racing driver blasting rival Joey Logano and blaming him for the accident.

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NASCAR respond after Busch Daytona 500 incident

In a further update over the crash, Busch took to social media to aim a rant towards the sport's stewards after his disappointing 34th-place finish, claiming that NASCAR 'don't even know their own rules.'

Following last weekend's controversial events, NASCAR’s senior vice president of competition, Elton Sawyer, returned to his weekly spot on SiriusXM Radio and discussed the Daytona 500 incident.

"I think it was a misunderstanding on Kyle’s, perspective,” Sawyer said on The Morning Drive.

"What we do on pit road as far as the damaged vehicle policy hasn’t changed from 2024 other than we’re giving an additional minute — it’s now seven minutes versus six.

"But as far as what our fans, and our competitors, what they witnessed last year in the past five or six years, the DVP policy looks the same on pit road with the adjustments that I mentioned."

"The one thing that we added this year is, at the scene of the incident, if you can’t drive away, we would hook the vehicle and we would tow it to the garage. Once you go to the garage, you’re going to get one opportunity to leave the garage and go on the racetrack. And this is not a new rule either — you get one opportunity at three consecutive green laps to meet minimum speed. Once you do that, you reset and you’re kind of back in the game.

"In Kyle’s case, he went out, left the garage, came back in and once you do that, then you’re going to be eliminated from the event. The reason that this rule was put in place the way it is was that if we didn’t have a way to basically have an end to the DVP part of it where you could reset, then what would happen is the competitors would go in the garage, work on the car a little bit, go back out, run one lap, come back in. They would do that multiple times, and that’s just kind of circumventing the purpose of the rules."

"I think it was clearly just a misunderstanding. We had multiple meetings in the off season with the teams and the drivers, multiple drivers came by throughout the week and had questions about the policy and making sure that they were clear. It was unfortunate for Kyle and the RCR team because they had a really good car."

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