Kyle Busch during driver introductions for the FireKeepers Casino 400 at Michigan International Speedway. (Photo: Aspen Marcheschi | The Podium Finish)
BROOKLYN, Mich. — After a rough stretch of finishes in the months of April and May with his No. 8 Richard Childress Racing team, Kyle Busch finally found some consistency with his first top ten finish in over two months during the FireKeepers Casino 400 at Michigan International Speedway.
Busch’s weekend started off on a high note when he qualified his No. 8 BetMGM Chevrolet on the front row alongside Chase Briscoe, who scored his third consecutive pole award on the season.
Even with the speed that Busch found in his qualifying run, his No. 8 machine did not have the race-winning pace that some people may have thought from the very start of the event. Busch fell back to ninth place by the conclusion of Stage 1. With varying strategy throughout the field in Stage 2, the No. 8 continued to free fall all the way outside the top 20.
Despite having a car that was not at its best for most of the day, Kyle Busch did Kyle Busch things. By the end of Stage 2, he found himself right on the cusp of the top 10, running in the 11th position.
In the early running of Stage 3, the veteran RCR driver found his way into the sixth position, holding off a hard charging Josh Berry. That battle lasted for around 20 laps until Todd Gilliland lost a left rear tire in Turn 2, bringing out the caution flag one final time at Lap 146.
With a little over 50 laps to go, every team in the field knew that the impending pit stop would be the deciding factor in who would position themselves best for the remainder of the race, and also who could make it to the end of the show on fuel, with the fuel window sitting around 45 laps.
Busch, along with many others in the field, came down pit road for service, but the sequence of events that occurred there left Busch farther back from where he had been before he entered pit road, in the 12th position.
Kyle Busch driving his No. 8 BetMGM Camaro during practice for the FireKeepers Casino 400 at Michigan International Speedway. (Photo: Aspen Marcheschi | The Podium Finish)
The RCR Chevrolet had to find a way back into the top 10 yet again, and for one of the most polarizing drivers in the sport, that was no problem for Busch. By the end of the race, while some of the field was running out of gas, like front runner William Byron, Busch propelled his RCR team to a very solid eighth place finish on a day that was not theirs from the very start of the race.
With Busch finishing in the top 10, a streak of seven races without a finishing position of 10th or better ended for the driver out of Las Vegas, Nevada. It was a much-needed break for him and the entire RCR organization.
“Qualifying second was a positive and it helped to start the race with clean air,” Busch said in his post-race comments. “We struggled with a lack of grip and speed in the race, but crew chief Randall Burnett did a good job with adjustments.”
Even last weekend at Nashville Superspeedway was a good result for Busch, who ran around the 20th to 25th position for a majority of the race. He eventually found a way to score a 12th place effort on a track that had shown some favor to him in the past.
Maybe this small streak of solid finishes is something that will help the former NASCAR Cup Series champion get back to his winning ways, as the Cup Series heads to Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico City for the first time in its history. However, it will not be Busch’s first rodeo in Mexico.
Back in 2008, in his first year with Joe Gibbs Racing, Busch won a Xfinity Series race at the course, the most recent NASCAR National Series action that occurred at the track.
Busch and his RCR team look to keep up there string of strong finishes when they visit the Mexico City track next weekend, hoping that past success and driver knowledge can play right into their hands.
“We wanted more, but to come out of here with a top ten finish, we’ll take what we got.”
