DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Kyle Busch could overcome some challenge history by winning Sunday’s 68th running of the Daytona 500.
He’s in great position to do it after winning the pole for the Great American Race during qualifying Wednesday night at Daytona Int’l Speedway.
Busch will make his 21st Daytona 500 start on Sunday, and no driver has ever won stock car racing’s most famous race after making their 20th start. Those drivers include Mark Martin (29 starts) and Tony Stewart (17 races).
“It’s a box we got to check. Here we are,” Busch said Wednesday night. “This is an opportunity to be able to do that. I’ve come down here a lot of years. I think I finished in about every position possible. It would be nice to close out 2026 with a victory here in the Daytona 500.”
Busch, 40, is starting his fourth season with Richard Childress Racing and his first with veteran crew chief Jim Pohlman.
“I think it’s a huge boost. Bringing Jim on board and having his passion and determination of what he’s done all off-season long, leading his group of guys, having them all believing in him and putting our faith in what he’s got to do for our team and being able to give us what we need to go out there to succeed,” Busch explained. “This is just a first step of it. This is the beginning of the year, first qualifying attempt of the season. There’s a whole heck of a lot more we have to do throughout the season to be good, to be real, to be contenders. But it sure feels good in the moment right now.”
Busch believes Pohlman is going to lead his No. 8 team back to the front of the field.
“Working with Jim has been good. He’s a very determined guy. He wants to make a difference and be the difference maker here at RCR and the 8 car and having us have a better chance of being able to reach victory lane each and every week,” Busch said. “It’s all about being able to extract the most out of the people, whether it’s everybody at the shop or whether it’s your team at the racetrack, the pit crew, all those guys. I feel like he’s got everybody really looking up to him and believing in him and his way. That’s been good.”
As for Busch’s strategy for Thursday night’s Daytona Duel, it is yet to be determined.
“That’s definitely something we have to sit down and talk about, figure out what your game plan is going to be,” Busch said. “There is that plus and minus of it, right? We’ve got a great opportunity to start on the front row with this race car. We’ve got to get through the Duel race.
“I’ve been with Richard here three years now, this will be my fourth, I think we’ve wrecked two of those years,” Busch added. “We’d like to not do that tomorrow night and have a good, clean race to come out and be able to use this car for Sunday and start the race from the number one spot.
The two-time Cup Series champion is also confronting a 92-race winless streak in the series.
“Challenges can be tough, it’s just the nature of how well you handle those challenges. You can obviously beat yourself down and get low,” Busch said. “It’s all about trying to build yourself up and keeping yourself at the top level that you can be to go out there and achieve success. It hasn’t been the greatest the last few years. We’ve had some close calls and sometimes where maybe we could have won a race.
“We certainly haven’t been dominant forces of being up front leading laps and having those chances be at the regular each and every week. If you only have two opportunities to win races through the year versus having 20 opportunities to win races through the year, you’ve got a bigger opportunity, a bigger window, to get those wins having the 20 chances.”
