Kyle Busch attempts to walk back Dale Earnhardt Jr. comments after first crew chief victory at Pocono

In the days since his comments about Dale Earnhardt Jr. serving as a crew chief went public and caught fire, Kyle Busch has slowly been walking things back. He did more damage control on Tuesday, speaking with Frontstretch.
Busch clarified his comments — he had called Earnhardt ‘a warm body sitting on top of the box’ — in a brief interview. He wished Earnhardt well.
“Well I meant that as if I were doing it, if I were going to go do that and say KBM Truck Series was in existence and one of our crew chiefs got suspended,” Kyle Busch said. “I’d raise my hand and say, ‘Yeah, I’ll go do it,’ but I know darned well those guys are going to be in my ear telling me everything that we need to do.
“He was obviously way more involved than I thought or expected that he would be, so I’m happy for him. Look, I mean that’s cool. That’s an accolade. That’s an asterisk on his resume. He doesn’t need any more of those, but it was fun to see his excitement and the things that he was involved with with the team.”
Kyle Busch, of course, carries some weight in the NASCAR ranks. So his comments on Earnhardt serving as a crew chief for the first time raised some eyebrows.
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In any case, it was clearly a positive experience for Earnhardt. His team, serving for Connor Zilisch in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, won the race.
To that end, Kyle Busch was also complimentary toward Zilisch. It’s clear he’s ready to move past his original comments altogether.
“Connor, I sat next to him on the airplane ride home from Mexico, we talked the whole ride home,” Busch said. “So he’s a great kid and I respect that they were able to do that together. That’s pretty cool.”