After being summoned to infield care center after practice slide, Kyle Busch decided to lie down

After Kyle Busch drove his car to the garage following a mild incident during Friday’s practice session at Texas Motor Speedway, he was told to go to the infield care center.

Busch’s car had some damage on the right rear of the car after he slid through turns 1 and 2. As he saved the car from spinning around, he almost kept it off the wall too. But he touched the wall enough to crinkle the quarterpanel on the car.

Busch was fine, as you would imagine he would be following such a (relatively) mellow incident. But because of NASCAR’s new infield care center rules, he was required to get checked out at the care center. So as a golf cart arrived to get Busch, the driver of the No. 18 decided to rest as he was driven to the care center.

NASCAR’s new medical protocols require a driver to head to the infield care center after any on-track accident even if he or she drives back to the garage during a race. Had Busch’s incident happened during Sunday’s race, his team would have spent multiple pit stops fixing the damage to his car and he would have kept competing.

But since there’s no good reason to keep practicing with a damaged car, Busch went back to the garage after his incident caused practice to come to a halt. Thus he was forced to go to the care center, even if he didn’t seem too enthused about it.

Busch’s team decided to fix the car after the incident instead of going to a backup.

Busch wasn’t the only driver who had problems during Friday’s practice. Erik Jones blew a tire off turn 4 and slammed into the wall while Chase Elliott’s car got loose off turn 2 and bounced off the outside wall before hitting the inside wall. It was the first practice session on the repaved and reconfigured 1.5-mile track.

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Nick Bromberg is the editor of Dr. Saturday and From the Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!

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