Kyle Busch breaks right leg in crash at Daytona
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) Kyle Busch broke his right leg and left foot in a vicious hit Saturday into a concrete wall during the Xfinity Series race. He'll miss the Daytona 500 on Sunday and is out indefinitely.
Busch sustained a right lower leg compound fracture and left mid-foot fracture in the crash with eight laps remaining. Joe Gibbs Racing said he was undergoing surgery on his right leg.
Later Saturday night, NASCAR's final appeals officer upheld Kurt Busch's indefinite suspension for an alleged domestic assault on an ex-girlfriend last fall. It means the Daytona 500 will not have one of the Busch brothers in the field for the first time since 2000.
Matt Crafton, a two-time Truck Series champion, will replace Busch in the No. 18 Toyota on Sunday in the season-opening Sprint Cup Series race. It will be Crafton's Daytona 500 debut.
Busch's injury occurred when his car slammed head-on into an interior wall that did not have an energy-absorbing SAFER barrier. It's a similar injury to the one suffered by Tony Stewart in an August 2013 sprint car crash, but not as severe as Stewart's was a double compound fracture.
