They did not give that ‘Rowdy’ nickname to Kyle Busch without a reason. When his temper rises and tensions flare on track, Busch hardly ever pauses to consider who is standing in front of him. At Texas Motor Speedway, it was his spotter who took the first batch of aggression, and later on, it was John Hunter Nemechek who earned himself a full serving of Rowdy’s wrath, which had another layer considering that Nemechek spent two seasons driving for Kyle Busch Motorsports, winning seven Craftsman Truck Series races for Busch’s own team in 2021 and 2022.

Near the mid-pack battle at the Würth 400 at Texas Motor Speedway yesterday. Kyle Busch and John Hunter Nemechek were racing side-by-side coming off Turn 2 and onto the backstretch, as both fought for a 12th-place finish on lap 266 of 267. To stop his advances, Kyle Busch abruptly closed the door on Nemechek, sending him into the wall. The two cars squeezed together off the corner, and both made contact with the backstretch wall. Had it ended there, it would have been a racing incident and nothing more.

As the two approached Turn 3, Busch turned hard right, door-slamming Nemechek and sending him into the outside wall with significant right-side damage. “Why did he do that?” Nemechek asked, audibly, over the No. 42 team radio.

He nursed his battered Toyota to pit road as the race finished under green, as the wreck erased what would have been Nemechek’s best finish of the 2026 season.

So, Nemechek, for his part, did not hold back: “not freaking clear. great day going. and just got wrecked. what an a–.”

Busch was hardly silent for long, too. Sharing SMT telemetry data alongside an in-car video, he explained, “I did not start this. The 42 apparently doesn’t know where the RS of his car is or where he is in relation to the outside wall. There was 2 ft outside him, and I was judging my left side tires against the hash marks. Always know who you’re racing beside.”

But that explanation didn’t convince Kevin Harvick and the fans.

Fans remind Kyle Busch who’s the real culprit in Texas

Going into Texas, Kyle Busch sat 27th in the standings, and that is a driver with 63 Cup victories languishing outside the playoff picture after a career-worst run of form. He had five straight finishes outside the top 20 before a top-10 at Talladega offered a sliver of relief. The crew chief change to Street, his first new pairing of the year, was meant to signal a reset.

Instead, his first race under new management was again reduced to a 20th-place finish because he couldn’t keep his composure with one lap to go. Even his own spotter had been imploring him throughout the day to keep his head down and run his own race, warnings that fans think clearly did not penetrate.

“When your spotter literally tells you there’s a car still outside, maybe don’t come across his nose. Just take accountability, Unc; it will be okay.”

Even Kevin Harvick raised doubts around Busch’s explanation, saying, “I don’t know what happened earlier in there. Everything that we saw right there, it looked like Kyle just turned over the front of the No. 42 car. Then, he just wrecked him.”

And there are now questions circling about whether Busch could face a suspension for the next race at Watkins Glen.

“I don’t think that’s worth demolishing you and another person’s car even more into turn 3.”

Another user reminded Kyle Busch, “You are clearly still the same hothead that intentionally wrecked Hornaday in 2011, after Hornaday was forced up into you by a lapper. You think that a racing mistake or some rubbing gives you the green light to intentionally wreck them, and it’s just absurd.”

On lap 14 of that Friday night race in the 2011 Truck Series incident at Texas, Busch pushed championship contender Ron Hornaday Jr.’s truck into the wall under caution, a deliberate act of retaliation for contact while the two had been running three-wide.

NASCAR fined Busch $50,000 and placed him on probation through the end of the year, with a warning that he would be suspended indefinitely for any further conduct deemed detrimental to the sport. NASCAR also parked him for the Saturday and Sunday races at Texas that same weekend, making him the first driver since Robby Gordon in 2007 to be removed from a Cup race for actions in a separate series race the same weekend.

The other users, meanwhile, took a sarcastic jab at Busch for having animosity with every other driver. This weekend, Busch had also been narrowly involved in a tense moment with Carson Hocevar during the earlier races at Texas, the same driver he publicly named on a Sean Hannity appearance as someone he doesn’t see eye-to-eye with, alongside Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski. The fans were quick to connect those dots.

“I’m sure it’s all Carson Hocevar, Nemechek, and your crew chiefs’ fault. If everywhere you go it smells like dogs–, it’s probably on your shoes.”

With that, the general sentiment is once again back to the same old demand.
“⁠You drove up into him a–hat!!!! Just retire already. Sheesh.”