The quest for 20-straight winning seasons is ongoing for Kyle Busch — but his Richard Childress Racing team showed it might be getting closer in Michigan.
After running in the top 10 for a good chunk of the race, Busch parlayed a two-tire strategy during his final stop in Stage 3 into a fourth-place finish in Monday’s FireKeepers Casino 400, earning his first top-five since Dover Motor Speedway in April.
It was a much-needed result for the driver and team, ending a torrid streak of difficult weekends dating back to Darlington Raceway in May. At the time Busch was 12th in points and looked like a playoff contender, but a stretch of 11 races with a 24.0 average finish — including five DNFs — saw the two-time champion drop to 18th in the standings and well out of playoff reach without a win.
Monday’s two-tire call was made to give Busch a shot at a victory. He’s won at least one Cup race in every season dating back to 2005. For a moment, it looked like Busch might just continue the streak. He emerged with the net lead after the short stop, narrowly leading William Byron and Tyler Reddick. But Busch couldn’t hold on, losing the top spot before pit stops cycled through and fading into the back of the top five.
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“I wish I’d came out with about an eight-second lead,” Busch joked. “That might have helped a little bit. We didn’t quite have that gap.”
The Nevadan ultimately took advantage of the double-overtime finish to rise back to fourth, paying off a solid weekend for his team with one of its best finishes of the year. It wasn’t a perfect weekend, but was easily the best the No. 8 team’s looked in months.
“Just needed a little bit more out of the Lucas Oil Chevrolet,” Busch said afterward. “We just kind of missed a tenth at each end, not quite being able to wrap the corners as fast as I needed to (in order) to be able to run 0.00s and teens. I think I was running 0.30s.
“Overall, just a net positive on the weekend and being better speed, up front and having a shot, anyways. We ran top 10 all day. Really good call by Randall [Burnett, crew chief] and the guys to get us that two tires, get us more track position and just try to hold them off as best as we could.“
Moving forward, Busch will do all he can to score another win and push his streak to 20-straight years with a victory — particularly in the next two weeks, when it could land him back in the layoffs.
The goal: Build off the Michigan momentum and keep running to expectation.
“This is how we would expect to run,” Busch said. “This is how we want to run. We want to run up front, top 10s, and have opportunities to excel. If I had to say, (we had) maybe a seventh- or eighth-place car today, and we got a fourth out of it. Good pit calls helped us to do that, and just making a couple good moves on those late restarts that got us that.
“Nothing can translate from today into Daytona or Darlington — setup wise, vehicle dynamics, that sort of stuff. But (we’ve got) good momentum rolling in the right direction. Just keep that going.”