It's always Busch's fault, even when it might not be

LOUDON, N.H. -- Eventually, something was going to give. Each time the green flag dropped Sunday, cars leaned on one another like drunk frat boys leaving a mixer. Vehicles went three- and four-wide wide entering the corner, they jammed the middle, they spun out and stacked up as if in rush-hour traffic on the Mass Pike. No question, NASCAR's recently implemented double-file restart rule fueled plenty of action at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. But on such a tight race track, it also seemed to invite calamity.

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When that calamity finally happened, on a restart on Lap 175, a green No. 18 car was right in the middle of it. And suddenly, everyone had a very convenient villain to blame.

Of course, Kyle Busch is long accustomed to playing the villain role by now. Whether it's a collision while racing to the finish in Richmond, contact on an intermediate oval like Kansas, or an accordion-style accident at a place like New Hampshire, if Busch is anywhere near it, he's guaranteed to get the blame -- whether he deserves it or not. Sunday, there were plenty of factors that went into an eight-car accident that centered around a crowded restart and a car near the front of the field spinning tires. Blaming one guy for something like that is like blaming the iceberg for what happened to the Titanic.

But hey, it's Kyle Busch. It's always his fault, right?

"I was just staying in line doing what I could to get going, and obviously you can't pass before the start/finish line. And I guess Kyle just decided he didn't want to lift, so I was just an innocent victim [Sunday]," said Martin Truex Jr., who got the worst of an accident that defined the Sprint Cup event until rookie Joey Logano won in the rain. "Someone spun the tires, and our lane didn't go. Kyle just lost his head, like he usually does when something bad happens. He decided he wasn't going to lift, he was going to turn me on the straightaway for no good reason at all. We have a tore up race car."

He wasn't alone. Someone at the front of the field -- apparently Dale Earnhardt Jr. -- spun tires on the restart, stacking up the low lane. Truex appeared to make some light contact with the rear of Earnhardt's car, though not enough to knock either vehicle out of line. Truex slowed as a result, and Busch was right behind him, and this time the contact was hard enough to send cars sliding sideways. Busch got away with minimal damage and went on to finish seventh, his best result in a month. But he left a trail of hard feelings and crumpled sheet metal behind him. (Continued)