BRISTOL, Tenn. -- Martin Truex Jr. blamed himself for being in position to be wrecked by Kyle Busch and blamed Busch for wrecking him even if it was unintentional during a wild Saturday night for both drivers.
Truex thought he should have moved Clint Bowyer when battling for the lead in the laps leading up to Busch's barely getting into the back of him, causing a hard spin with 68 laps remaining in the NASCAR Cup Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway.
"Half [Busch's] fault, half my fault for following the 14 [of Bowyer] so long," Truex said. "I should've knocked his butt out of the way because he held me up for 15-20 laps and I burnt my front tires off screwing with him. So just played too nice and got the crappy end of the stick."
Busch barely tapped Truex as he tried to slide behind Truex while moving to the upper groove as they battled for second.
"I didn't think he was going to run into me," Truex said. "Usually we race great together all the time. We had one incident last year, and it was my fault totally [at Indianapolis], and we had this one incident tonight, and obviously it was totally his fault. I guarantee you he didn't do it on purpose.
"It is just the way it goes sometimes."
Busch took the blame for the accident, and the two drivers get along well as part of the Joe Gibbs Racing alliance with Furniture Row Racing. The crews have had their issues, though, shouting at each other last year at Indianapolis.
"That was just a misjudgment on my behalf," Busch said. "I crashed the 78 [of Truex], so that was bad. I totally misjudged that one coming off the corner.
"Knowing there were plenty of laps left, I wasn't even in a hurry, and I just misjudged it by four, six inches, whatever it was, and I clipped him there and sent him for a ride."
Busch crew chief Adam Stevens figured the Truex team is upset with Busch. Crew chief Cole Pearn went to the team's pit box and gave the team a thumb's up, but Stevens never saw it.
"I would assume they're upset," Stevens said. "They got wrecked out of a race. That's all there is to it."
But Busch didn't think there would be many repercussions.
"I think they're fine," Busch said. "Maybe I will send them a sorry cake to the Denver shop [where the Truex team is based] for the guys having to work extra. They'll probably throw that one away. It ruined their day of being able to get a win or a second."
It was a long night for Busch, who spun on the third lap, suffering considerable damage and losing two laps as the team made repairs. Busch was trying to work his way into the traction compound, a sticky substance track officials use on the lower groove to give the drivers more grip and encourage them to try the bottom groove despite the upper groove being naturally faster at Bristol.
"I was trying to stay out of the glue because I knew it was going to be slick to start with," Busch said. "I got a little bit more into the glue that lap, like every lap I was going to try to work my way down.
"The guys on the outside were kind of pinching you a little bit. When I got in the glue, it slipped right out of the glue back up the race track, and whoever was on my outside [Ryan Blaney], I hit him in the door, and it just went around."
Busch rallied to get back to the front but suffered a flat tire with about 18 laps left when battling for position following a restart. He settled for 20th; Truex finished 30th.
"We probably finished where we should have anyways, as torn up as our race car is," Busch said. "We had a shot to be able to come back there and win the race, realistically, if it wasn't for getting caught up with the 37 [Chris Buescher] and the 48 [Jimmie Johnson]."