DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – For weeks, the story was that Kyle Busch needed to win to make the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs.
He went through a miserable stretch that included four finishes of 27th or worse in the month of June alone. At one point in time – although it was after just two races – Busch led the championship standings but has since dropped as low as 18th.
The previous two races had been a sign of progress. Busch finished 12th at Richmond (Va.) Raceway before securing his first top-five since May at Michigan Int’l Speedway.
With the tide turning and just two races remaining in the regular season, the stars seemed to align perfectly for Busch to where a win could be in the cards at Daytona Int’l Speedway.
Busch and the No. 8 Richard Childress Racing team ran a near-perfect race. They started 11th, stayed in contention all race, avoided the wrecks and ultimately had a shot at the end.
He had a couple of different opportunities in the closing laps.
With two laps to go, Busch was third in line pushing on the inside. Josh Berry, who led the line, got spun sideways after contact from Austin Cindric directly behind him and went for a wild ride, flipping onto his roof and hitting the wall. Berry came to rest upside down, and after several minutes, finally got turned back onto his wheels by the NASCAR safety crew. He was uninjured.
That came just a few laps after Michael McDowell triggered a major crash at the front of the field that claimed several contenders.
Just like that, with a little good fortune on his side, Busch was suddenly the leader.
Now in NASCAR Overtime, Busch got a good restart on the bottom as the top line didn’t have enough help. Busch nearly went out too far exiting Turn Two on the last lap but tucked back in front of former Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Christopher Bell down the backstretch.
Meanwhile, the top lane regained its momentum and Burton shot past Busch entering Turn Three with a push from Parker Retzlaff – who was making just his second series start. Burton slid to the bottom exiting Turn Four and made a block on Busch – even going below the double-yellow line, but NASCAR deemed incidental contact. He recovered and slid back up the track for one more victory-securing block.
For Busch, he felt like he didn’t do anything wrong. When the team needed a chance at a victory, the 63-time series winner gave it that.
But at the same time, another painstaking chapter has been written into the book of 2024 for the two-time champion.
“It’s all good. We were really, really, really lucky tonight to miss a few of them crashes,” Busch said after the race. “Just from what I recall, we got off of [Turn] Two [on the final lap], somehow the bottom lane got discombobulated, broke all of our momentum, the top lane just rolled.
“Once they got in front, with as little energy as there was with the lack of cars that there were, it was hard to make anything happen from Turn Four to start/finish. Besides just flat-out wrecking him, there was nothing else I could do.
“Was hoping we could get those three No. 8 specials on Monday, get some chicken tenders rolling, but wasn’t meant to be. We’ll take this. Got a good little stretch going with these last three weeks.”
That leaves Busch with just one option: win at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway. He’ll be among a plethora of drivers trying to win their way in, while five other drivers can still secure the final three spots on points.
Busch finished 27th at Darlington in the spring and has a win and 14 top 10s in 25 starts. He’s also hoping to win and extend his streak to 20 consecutive seasons with at least one victory.
“We ran good [at Darlington] the first time I ran with these guys early last year. But early this year, we struggled mightily,” Busch said. “We’ll just have to go with hopefully a really good package that works, get our job done.”