Junior Subbing In For Busch Like A Return To Old NASCAR Days
Forth Worth, Texas (AHN) - A.J. Foyt, John A. Utsman, Darrell Waltrip, Martin Truex Jr. and Ricky Rudd have all done it.
Foyt, Utsman and Waltrip helped produce wins, but Dale Earnhardt Jr. subbed in for Kyle Busch this past Sunday in the Samsung 500 at Texas Motor Speedway because a friend asked him to.
Junior's No. 8 Chevrolet lost an engine and bowed out of the 500-mile event on Lap 288 of the 334-lap event and was, surprisingly, available when Hendrick Motorsports came looking for a substitution driver.
Kyle Busch, the regular driver of the No. 5 Chevrolet, had left the track with the understanding that his race was over for the day, but the No. 5 team was able to get the car back to speed and back out on the track.
When Kyle Busch wasn't available they looked to Junior.
"It was a miscommunication between the team and Kyle. He thought they weren't going to go back out so he left. So they asked Dale Jr., to fill in, there were a few laps left, they knew they could gain a position and gain three valuable points,'' said Alan Gustafson, Kyle Busch's crew chief. "Junior didn't hesitate and agreed and it was a very sportsman-like gesture and it says a lot about Dale, Jr. and the kind of person he is. I like having Kyle Busch in my car but it was very cool to have Dale Jr. to do that."
Junior enabled the No. 5 ride to complete 262 of the race's 334 laps and the car improved some to a 37th-place finish.
It doesn't happen very often, but over the years drivers have been known to fill in other drivers' rides. Rudd drove at Dover for an ailing Tony Stewart (shoulder) last July and Truex Jr. filled in for Dale Jr. (burns from a test crash) in 2004 at New Hampshire.
In April 1965, Foyt brought home a victory at Atlanta for Marvin Panch and Utsman drove 170 laps before turning the last 80 laps over to Benny Parsons at Bristol in 1973. In August 1977, Donnie Allison got an assist from Waltrip at Talladega, who drove to the win after Allison became ill.
"I have some friends on that team - and I'll always jump at a chance to climb into someone else's car to see what it's like. They used to do that all the time back in the day,'' said Junior. "You'd have relief drivers getting into someone's car almost every week, so it was kinda like a step back into NASCAR history or something. Old school, it was cool."
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