Some reflection by Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski over their recent Twitter spat offers a little more insight than what 140 characters allowed.
Speaking with NASCAR.com, Busch admits there may have been some mind games at work ahead of the Tales of the Turtles 400 at Chicagoland Speedway. All of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup teams are fighting for position in the post season, but Busch says Keselowski is focusing on what he perceives as an unfair edge rather than looking in the mirror.
"Overall, I would say the biggest thing is that you don't hear anyone else complaining like he is - it's just one guy," Busch said after winning the pole, his seventh of the season and the 26th of his career. "We work on what we work on and we weren't complaining when (Team Penske) were fast and they won the championship knowing what they were doing, we had to go to work and figure it out."
On his end, Keselowski sees a double-standard by NASCAR. When Ford teams were leading the field earlier this year, he feels there was an effort to slow them down.
"There are natural cycles where cars, teams, manufacturers ... go up and down," he said. "At the start of the year we were at the top of the cycle. And at this moment, we are not where we need to be. With respect to that, we were at the top and it seemed like there were a lot of rules changes to slow us down and now you have cars that are so much faster than the field and the complete inaction by anybody."
Busch says that's nonsense.
"He thinks that somehow the big brother is going to come up and help him," Busch said. "I don't know what the point is, we all just work hard and do our jobs, we've gotten to where we are and we're going to keep doing that."
Dale Earnhardt, Jr. weighed in on the feud, saying the argument of favoritism just doesn't hold water given that Chevy teams have won more races than anyone this year.
"I think you have to look at more than just are the Toyotas better or the Fords better or are the Chevys better? It's really how people run their business and I think the Gibbs guys have been working on how they build cars together as a group across the board and how all the teams work together and I think they've really got it going on right now."