It's not that Kyle Busch doesn't have faith in Tony Stewart. But. ...
The 2015 Sprint Cup Series champion admitted that the back injury Stewart suffered resulting from his ATV crash off a sand dunes cliff puts him at a bigger disadvantage than Busch was in last year after breaking his leg and foot at the Daytona 500, according to USA Today Sports.
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Using terms, "taller order" and "bigger deal," Busch compared Stewart's plight to his own analyzing beyond Stewart's broken back.
"In my situation, I don't feel like I'd struggled as bad as Tony has the last couple of years," Busch said. "So Tony was definitely going to need part of the season to get used to working with a new crew chief and getting his program rebuilt, and now he doesn't have that time.
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"So when he comes back, he'd better be ready to go and the team had better be ready to go. I feel like when I missed the races I missed, it made (crew chief) Adam (Stevens) better and it made the team better because they knew they had to be better with the drivers they had."
Stewart hasn't won a NASCAR race since June 2, 2013 at Dover International Speedway. Busch was not struggling to compete before his injury the way Stewart did in 2015.
Busch finished 10th in the Chase for the Cup standings in 2014 with an average finish of 17.6. Stewart, on the other hand, was 28th in the standings last year, recording an average finish of 24.8.
That made Busch's attempt at showing support for Stewart somewhat hollow.
"He's (come back from injury) once, he can do it again - he will do it again," Busch said. "And I hope when he comes back, he will be a force to be reckoned with."
But it was a badly broken leg that Stewart suffered in August of 2013 in a dirt-track race crash that kick-started his prolonged slump. He's undergone four surgeries to repair the leg, and he still has a rod in place in the leg that he says will come out when he has the two rods and six screws in his back removed after the season.
Stewart is also dealing with the horrific accident in August of 2014 in which Kevin Ward Jr. died as a result of him approaching Stewart's car on foot and Stewart's right rear wheel catching him and sending him airborne and crashing to his death.
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