Time is running out for Kyle Busch to extend his impressive winning streak to 20 consecutive NASCAR seasons with at least one victory.
There are only six races left this year as Busch heads to Talladega Superspeedway, where he has won twice in his career. Since his rookie season in 2005, he has won almost everywhere, racking up 63 Cup Series victories and two championships.
However, he lost his spot at Joe Gibbs Racing after the 2022 season due to sponsorship problems, and his move to Richard Childress Racing has resulted in the longest losing streak of his career. Busch won in his second race with RCR last year, achieving three victories and making the playoffs.
His last win came at Gateway near St. Louis in June 2023, and now his losing streak stands at a career-worst 51 races as he heads into Sunday. He didn’t qualify for the playoffs and is now just trying to keep his season winning streak alive.
This year, he has two second-place finishes and lost a close three-wide race at the start of the season by only 0.007 seconds in a few near misses. However, his 19th-place finish at Kansas last week, where he started third and led 26 laps, shocked the future Hall of Famer at how much things have changed.
Busch’s 19 consecutive years with at least one victory is a NASCAR record, and across all three national series, he has achieved 231 wins. He believed a win was possible at Kansas until he spun out while passing a slower car, which ended his chance at victory.
“I’m numb,” Busch said on pit road at Kansas. “I don’t know what to do.”
Since his last win, Busch has only 11 top-five finishes, and as RCR has faced a serious decline this season, he has recorded five DNFs in a seven-week period. He’s had his opportunities: Busch finished second to Harrison Burton by 0.047 seconds at Daytona in August and then lost to Chase Briscoe at Darlington Raceway the following week by 0.361 seconds.
With those two wins, Burton and Briscoe took the last two spots in the playoff field, leaving Busch out of the championship race.
Busch was hired by Richard Childress after Tyler Reddick surprised the team by signing with 23XI Racing a full year before his contract was up. Childress wanted to keep Reddick in the No. 8 Chevrolet through 2023, but since Busch was available after not being able to make a deal to stay with Gibbs, Childress released Reddick early and signed Busch at a lower price.
Reddick thought Busch, who has a similar attitude to the late Dale Earnhardt, would be a great match with Earnhardt’s former team owner.
“I feel competition-wise, I wouldn’t have seen the struggles coming,” Reddick said, who won NASCAR’s regular-season title with 23XI. “I do remember, at times, we were hit or miss (at RCR). There were tracks we struggled at, there was work to do at tracks we struggled at.
“But it seems they’ve been struggling more times than not, which is not what you would expect out of that group, or out of Kyle Busch,” Reddick continued. “It’s just that nothing has gone Kyle Busch’s way this year. It’s been really crazy to watch that unfold.”
Busch admitted earlier this year that NASCAR’s reduction in practice time has made it harder for him to adjust to the Next Gen car and find the speed and comfort he needs while driving.
The Next Gen car has created more competition among the 40-car Cup field, and it has been over a year since a driver has won back-to-back races, which Chris Buescher did last August at Richmond and Michigan.
Reddick also believes that learning the car with limited practice time every weekend has held Busch back.
“I wouldn’t say he doesn’t have it figured out, I think he knows what he’s doing,” Reddick said. “He knows what he needs his car to do. This Next Gen racing is just quite a bit different than what it was when I came into it with the previous car. And it really doesn’t take much to take a car that could win to running 15th.
“It’s not like it used to be where you can get your way back up there with a good-handling car. The spread from first to 20th … is really, really tight. Everyone is really close in a lot of ways and it is an unforgiving sport in that regard. You can’t have mistakes. You can’t get put in a bad spot. It’s difficult to close these races out.”
Busch has six more chances starting Sunday to keep his winning streak alive.
