Kyle Busch is hiding his frustration. He’s concealing his disappointment and moving through the NASCAR garage, trying not to show how tough this season has been for the two-time Cup Series champion.
“I’m a great actor, apparently,” he joked.
Busch hasn’t won in 45 races, with his last victory being at Gateway Park near St. Louis on June 4, 2023. This losing streak puts him in a difficult position as he heads into Saturday night’s race at Daytona International Speedway.
Busch needs to win one of the two remaining regular-season races—Daytona and Darlington—to make the playoffs for the 12th consecutive year. He last missed the postseason in 2012.
“We could legit win Daytona,” Busch confidently said on Thursday during a Zoom call. He pointed to a 12th-place finish at Daytona in February, good performances at similar tracks in Atlanta and Talladega, and even a fourth-place finish last week at Michigan.
He might be trying to stay positive despite his record of just one win in 38 starts at the track where NASCAR began. Either way, Busch didn’t hide his frustration with how his season has gone.
“It’s tough because, when you have done as well as you’ve done and the success and the accolades and everything that you’ve had and you get run over, beat down, all that sort of stuff, it’s hard to get yourself back up again and to go back out there,” Busch said.
“But I’ve been down before, although probably never as long or as low as this has been.”
The 39-year-old Busch said the results haven’t matched his team’s efforts. He is spending more time in the simulator and has even swapped some crew members between the two Richard Childress Racing cars, but he’s not seeing much improvement.
