JOLIET, Ill. -- A pit-crew change for Kyle Busch didn't work out as expected for Joe Gibbs Racing in the opening race of the NASCAR Cup playoffs.
After winning the opening stage and leading 85 of the first 87 laps Sunday at Chicagoland Speedway, Busch lost two laps when he had to pit for a loose wheel and then come down pit road again when he was penalized for the gas man being over the wall too soon.
His 15th-place finish shouldn't hurt him too much in advancing to the quarterfinal round of the playoffs, as he dropped from third to fifth in the standings and still has a 35-point cushion on 13th, the current elimination cutoff with two races left in the opening round.
JGR decided to have the pit crew of Daniel Suarez, who didn't make the playoffs, pit Busch's car starting this weekend. Suarez got Busch's crew for the rest of the year.
"We all made this decision," said Busch, who finished one lap down. "We're all in it together. I've got to talk to Joe [Gibbs] and figure out what we're going to do. ... You've got to move on. There's nothing we can do right now."
The penalty for having a crewman over the wall too soon was especially frustrating, considering the gas man was not even filling up the car with gas but just had gone over the wall prior to the stop.
"It was piss-poor execution all-around," Busch crew chief Adam Stevens said. "When you make back-to-back mistakes, it's tough to recover from. ... It was a company decision to make the change that we made, and I wouldn't expect that to change.
"I'm confident we made the right one. It's just a bad day."
Stevens said he hoped it was first-race playoff jitters.
"I hope so, but I don't know," Stevens said. "Obviously, I haven't had a chance to debrief with them yet. Practice went really well this week leading up to it. ... At the end of the day, we all have a job to do, and we didn't do it today."
Although the finish likely won't impact Busch's playoff standing, Busch lamented potentially losing six playoff points (one for winning the second stage and five for the race win) that he might need to advance in future rounds of the playoffs.
"Three top-15s in a row should transfer you through this first round, but ... [it's] going to hurt you on the points you're going to need [in] stage points and wins for that third round," Busch said.