Busch crew chief working through kidney stone complications

TALLDEGA, Ala. (AP) – Tony Gibson didn’t get to celebrate his victory with Kurt Busch very much. Soreness from a passed kidney stone concerned him enough to visit a doctor just two days after their win at Richmond.

Tests on Tuesday discovered the crew chief had never passed the kidney stone that sidelined Gibson during the April 19 race at Bristol.

“I thought I’d passed it, but I guess it was just pieces of it because they went back on Tuesday and did a scan and ran the dye through me to see what was up,” said Gibson, who also had a kidney stone during the March race at Las Vegas.

“The doctor looked at the scan and said, ‘Dude, you’ve got one that is seven millimeters. That’s huge.’ ”

Gibson was brought back in Wednesday for a procedure to remove the stone, and a stent was inserted from his bladder to his kidney.

One day later, Gibson was on the Stewart-Haas Racing plane flying to Alabama for Sunday’s race at Talladega Superspeedway.

Gibson said he was sore, but he’d rather be feeling poorly at the race track than sitting at home.

“It kills me not being at the race track – at Bristol, not being able to be on the (pit) box just killed me,” Gibson said Friday. “I can feel this way at home or I can feel this way here. At least I am here and my mind is off of it.”

Gibson had incentive to be at the track: Since Busch returned to the No. 41 Chevrolet after a three-race NASCAR suspension, the team has consistently contended for wins and finally earned its first victory Sunday at Richmond.

Busch has three top-five finishes and has led laps in all but one of the six races since his return.

“He’s just been jacked up,” said Gibson, who took over as Busch’s crew chief with three races remaining last season.

“We went three races last year and they were really good races for us, and then we go to Vegas and do the tire test and have a ton of speed. So we’re jacked up already. We knew eventually we’d get him back, and we did, and we kept building him really fast cars. He came back and he’s been on a tear. An absolute tear.”