DAYTONA BEACH — Kyle Busch was involved in a multicar crash at Daytona International Speedway, where he returned Friday for the first time since he was injured at the track in February.
Busch, who broke his right leg and left foot in a crash a day before the season-opening Daytona 500, spun nine minutes into the first practice session for Sunday's Coke Zero 400 when he was bumped from behind by Brad Keselowski. As Busch's car spun down the track, he was hit in the side by Greg Biffle.
Those two cars then spun into Martin Truex, and the scrum was hit by Denny Hamlin. Also caught up in the crash was Carl Edwards, as Joe Gibbs Racing had three cars involved in the crash and 10 drivers had to pull out their backup cars.
"Looks like (Keselowski) got into my left rear," Busch said. "He got away unscathed and trashed everybody else's stuff."
Busch placed the blame squarely on Keselowski for a "not very smart" move.
"All these guys at the shop and everybody, they work way too hard building race cars … to be wrecking them in practice. There's room to lift (off the throttle), and sometimes people don't," Busch said. "It's his fault. He caused it, but I've also been in the same boat and caused them before.
"It's practice, you don't need to be up a guy's left rear. I rolled out and got out of the gas I don't know how many times just to not run into the car in front of me because it's not that time of the game to go."
Busch was sidelined the first three months of the season with his injuries. He returned to his JGR team in late May, and NASCAR said he can participate in the Sprint Cup Chase for the Championship should he qualify for the 16-driver field.
He took a big step toward that last week by winning at Sonoma, but he still must make the top 30 in points to be eligible. Busch is ranked 37th with 10 races remaining to crack the top 30.
He's 136 points out of 30th and needs to average roughly a 14th-place finish in each of the next 10 races to hit his goal.
In related news, Daytona International Speedway, in the final push of a $400 million renovation, is close to covering the track in energy-absorbing SAFER barriers as track president Joie Chitwood vowed to do after Busch was hurt in February.
Chitwood said 4,100 feet of SAFER barrier has been installed since Busch's crash. The soft walls were installed beyond the exit of pit road, the exit of Turn 4 at pit entrance and the entire inside wall along the backstretch.
"With this being a high-speed property and with all the cars traveling close together, the feeling is we want to (be) safer everywhere," Chitwood said.
Chitwood had initially promised the night of Busch's crash to install the SAFER barriers "on every inch of our property," but the speedway did not have time to complete the project before Sunday's race. Chitwood said the remaining 4,000 feet will be installed before NASCAR returns next year for the Daytona 500.
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Explore all your optionsThe track also added more than 200,000 square feet of asphalt in four locations: inside the grass area at Turn 1, the exit of Turn 4 and two areas at pit-in and pit-out, and it realigned the wall that Busch hit head-on. Busch was injured when his car spun and slid through the grass directly into a concrete wall.
Daytona paved more than 177,000 square feet of grass in the Turn 1 area where Busch slid.