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Did Lexus Put Kyle Busch Up to Speeding?

On Tuesday, Joe Gibbs Racing driver Kyle Busch took his driving skills off the oval and right into the streets, trying to see how a Lexus LFA would perform at 128 mph in a 45 mph zone near Charlotte. The car performed extraordinarily, so much so that it even caught the attention of a police officer, who pulled the street racer over to ask him how he's been, how racing's going and why isn't he doing it on the track, where he was supposed to.

You all know the Lexus LFA, the mother of all recent supercars, an exclusive monster that spits 53 hp at 8,700 rpm and 480 Nm of torque at 6,800 rpm from a 4.8l V8 engine, barely kept under control with the help of a six-speed automated sequential gearbox. And you also know Busch...

What apparently we didn't know, and the guys as Jalopnik say it's so, is that the Japanese automaker intentionally paired Busch with the LFA and supposedly asked him to get caught speeding. You know, the good old “bad publicity is better than no publicity at all.”

As the word goes, the target audience of the LFA is people who enjoy racing. And since NASCAR is one of the most viewed motorsports in the world, what better way to advertise the LFA than by putting a NASCAR figure behind the wheel and have him make something nasty?

Now, we don't know what we should make of all that. You all know the Lexus LFA. And so does the rest of the world. So why would Lexus need to do this? Maybe Busch has an answer.

 "Today I received a traffic citation in Iredell County," Busch said in a statement. "I was test driving a new sports car and I got carried away. I went beyond the speed I should have been going on a public road. I apologize to the public, my fans, sponsors, and race teams for my lack of judgment."
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About the author: Daniel Patrascu
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Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies.
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