By: Ashley McCubbin

With competition so close, everybody is striving to get whatever advantage they can at any aspect of the event. As a result, drivers will try and get everything they can coming into and off pit road. Sometimes, though, they go too far and incur a speeding penalty from NASCAR.

Since the sport has returned to action after the COVID-19 hiatus, the amount of speeding penalties handed out has grown exponentially.

In the NASCAR Cup Series on average, there has been five to six infractions per race, compared to just one or two in the events ran prior to the pandemic. While there has been 40 total penalties handed out in 2020, just six of those occurred during the pre-COVID-19 period, with the rest (34) taking place from Darlington Raceway and onward.

Kyle Busch was not speeding on record in all of NASCAR’s series before the break, but has since been caught five times with a pair of Cup Series infractions, two in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, and a single penalty NASCAR Gander Outdoor Truck Series.

It is worth noting that speeding at Darlington Raceway in the Xfinity Series put him behind, requiring a drive-thru the field and ultimately losing out in a photo finish to Chase Briscoe. However, he rebounded from speeding at Charlotte in Xfinity to win. The pair of Cup Series events he sped, the Coca-Cola 600 (at Charlotte Motor Speedway) and Food City presents the Supermarket Heroes 500 (at Bristol Motor Speedway) saw him rebound for fourth in both events, while his Truck Series penalty at Atlanta was following contact with the wall en route to a 21st.

For Busch, he told POPULAR SPEED and the media after the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 that the infractions have come with pushing the limits, and the lack of practice. No series has been allowed a session prior to their event since the break.

“I think I’m able to really fine-tune my tachometers or my digital dash and my lights and all that stuff through practices,” he told the media. “When we have practices every time I come in, every time I go out I’m working on my lights and kind of checking and seeing what it takes to maintain my lights and I make adjustments and tweaks to them all weekend long, and this year we just haven’t had that.

“Some of it’s where we’re setting them, being too close to the line, not having enough filter we call it, and then also just over-pushing it on my side, as well, too, and trying to be No. 1 on pit road like I’ve always been.”

Busch’s pair of Cup Series infractions isn’t the most of his competitors, with four drivers ahead of him in that regard. Bubba Wallace has been caught the most, speeding five times with four of those infractions since the COVID-19 break. Daniel Suarez is next with four penalties, followed by Ryan Newman and Corey Lajoie with three, and then eight drivers with a pair.