Kurt & Jimmie Part IV set for Watkins Glen

Associated Press

WATKINS GLEN, N.Y.

“You wrecked me!”

“Did not!”

“Did so!”

“It was an accident.”

“Was not.”

“Was so.”

Welcome to the prickly world of Kurt Busch and Jimmie Johnson, who just can’t seem to stay out of each other’s way on the racetrack.

Ever since Busch chanted “anyone but the 48” after Johnson drove his Hendrick Motorsports Chevy past Busch to win at Bristol in the fifth race of the Sprint Cup season, it’s almost been nobody but the 48 when the two have gotten close to each other on the track.

When Busch bumped Johnson out of the way to take the lead in the closing laps at New Hampshire in June, Johnson caught Busch, put a little bump on his No. 2 Penske Racing Dodge and slipped his No. 48 underneath with two laps to go, and won for the fifth time to tie Denny Hamlin for the series lead in victories.

“I don’t want people to think, ’Oh, I can knock the 48 out of the way because he’s not going to wreck me,”’ Johnson said after the race.

Last week at Pocono, it got worse when Johnson caused a stunning late-race crash that collected Elliott Sadler, Clint Bowyer and Busch. Replays showed the 48 appearing to hit Busch’s blue No. 2 from behind. Busch’s car swerved in front of Bowyer’s Chevy before slipping sideways into the infield grass and smashing into the infield barrier.

Busch walked away, the race was halted for 20-plus minutes while workers cleaned up extensive debris and welded the barrier back together, and after getting checked out by medics, Busch pointed blame straight at the number he has come to despise.

“I wrecked on the straightaway. Jimmie Johnson drove straight through us,” he said.

Johnson called Busch on Monday to talk. They say they’ve put the incidents in the rearview mirror.

“It was a racing incident and I hate that over the last year or two there have been a lot of those racing incidents, and he has certainly been on the losing end of that situation,” Johnson said between practices for today’s Cup race. “It is nothing intentional and nothing I have against him. He and I joked on the phone that we have these magnets we can’t get rid of.”

Joked?

“I may not intentionally try to wreck him,” Busch said. “It’s tough to put it behind me because I look at the wrecked race cars I have at the shop, where he goes to his shop and all those cars are pretty and clean. We’ve got a high car count of wrecked cars over at our shop and those guys on the 48, and even [Johnson’s teammate] Jeff Gordon, with what he did to us at Sonoma, it’s been definitely a one-way street right now.”

Late in the June race on the road course at Sonoma, Gordon and Busch were running side by side near the front when Gordon knocked the No. 2 off the racing surface. Busch, who had a similar confrontation with Johnson at Sonoma the previous year and finished 11 places behind the 48, finished 32nd after starting third.

Busch, a solid sixth in the standings with two wins, said his team was struggling with getting the damaged cars turned around quickly enough and has been hearing it from his crew.

“I feel bad for all the guys,” Busch said. “At the same time, it’s tough when they’re texting me, ’Hey man, we need to go wreck that guy. We need to put him on his lid,’ and have to manage everything.

“Ultimately, it comes down to the drivers down on the track knowing when someone crosses the line or not. Johnson and I are fine. It’s tough when we have three [wrecks] against nothing right now.”