(Photo: Cornnell Chu | The Podium Finish)
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Kyle Busch has accomplished nearly everything in the stock car ranks. The only thing he’s missing is a Daytona 500 victory.
In the closing laps of the 65th running of “The Great American Race,” it looked like that box could finally get checked. As Busch led coming to two laps to go, Daniel Suarez spun coming off Turn 4, causing a caution and NASCAR Overtime.
Busch had an ideal situation coming to the green-white-checkered finish. With Richard Childress Racing teammate Austin Dillon running second, Busch elected for the high lane on the restart. Upon taking the green flag, Busch slid down in front of Dillon and got a shove.
But exiting Turn 2, the bottom line lost momentum and Busch dropped back to fifth. An untimely shove from William Byron sent Dillon spinning into traffic, causing a 13-car crash and another caution.
On the next restart, Busch got help from behind from Alex Bowman before linking up with Joey Logano coming to the white flag. Running second on the top, a crash sparked by Travis Pastrana and Kyle Larson collected Busch, relegating him to a 19th-place finish.
“I just tried to keep it straight as much as I can and wait for when it’s going to happen and eventually it does, and it did again today,” Busch said. “I tried, and I don’t know what else to do. Come up short. Led Lap 200 and wish it was still 1998 rules.”
(Photo: Cornnell Chu | The Podium Finish)
Busch battled adversity throughout the week. He made the second round of pole qualifying before his final time was disallowed for going under the double-yellow line.
In Thursday’s Bluegreen Vacations Duel, a shove from Daniel Suarez sent him crashing into the inside wall and out of the race. Busch had to go to a backup car and start from the rear.
Had Busch won, it would’ve been his first victory on a superspeedway since 2008, when he won at both Daytona and Talladega Superspeedway with Joe Gibbs Racing.
It also would’ve been his first victory with RCR since making the switch over the off-season.
Busch earned 18 points with Sunday’s result. He failed to place in the top 10 of either stage.
Now Busch’s attention will shift to the West Coast swing, comprising of Auto Club Speedway, Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Phoenix Raceway. He’s won at Auto Club four times and Phoenix three times. He’s won at Las Vegas, his home track, just once.
“Definitely excited for the start of the season and getting to the real racetracks,” Busch said.
