Kyle Busch's first top-five of year part of "building process"
It’s been a rough start to the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series season for Kyle Busch but Sunday’s race at Las Vegas may have helped turned the corner.
Busch entered Sunday’s Pennzoil 400 with one top-10 finish in the season’s first three races and 18th in the series standings. And for much of the race, it didn’t appear much improvement was imminent.
His No. 18 Toyota had trouble keeping up during some of the wild three- and four-wide restarts in the race, but Busch rallied during the long green-flag run late in the final stage to salvage a third-place finish.
Not only does that give Busch his first top-five of the season but it will set him up nicely with a solid starting position for next Sunday’s race at Phoenix. He also jumped to 14th in the series standings.
“It’s all about building blocks. I felt like today was a good building process for us. I just always kept trying to give the best feedback I possibly could,” Busch said. “Being able to tell (crew chief Ben Beshore) what the car was doing, where we were coming from with the adjustments we were making.
“He was making good adjustments all day. Seemed like the first two or three of them really didn’t do anything. We started taking swings with wrenches in the back window, stuff like that.
“Off on balance to start. Got way better towards the end. Still there was room for improvement there at the end. Overall, our speed was a little off.”
Trying to make up for a lack of practice
Busch said his team has been perplexed by finding some of the work it does in the simulator does not always replicate on the race track.
“Last year, once we lost practice and everything like that, we knew we weren’t going to go back to practice, we would go to the simulator every single week,” he said. “I spent five hours there working on things, trying to get us the right balance.
“This week we came to the race track super, super tight. I mean, eight numbers tighter on the race track than it was in sim. Typically, when you’re good in sim, you’re about two numbers loose. I don’t know. It’s just a big deal.
“I mean, a lot of it is tire. We have to figure out the tire model and try to make what we think is right there. We’ll keep working on it. That’s the only tool we’ve got.”
Busch said he hopes his team is able to utilize the benefits of Sunday’s strong finish to get off to a better start at Phoenix.
“We kind of had a hole that we had to dig ourselves out of. We’ve been working on that each week, getting closer,” he said.
“We keep starting these races too far back or too far off on balance with the race car, we miss points in the first stage, and that’s just been killing us.”
Related video
Second-place Keselowski "really happy" for Vegas winner Larson
Las Vegas win a reminder of Kyle Larson's NASCAR promise
How Larson took the long way round to NASCAR Cup glory
From villain to hero, Kyle Larson had to reach his lifelong goal the hard way and go through a very public shaming after a ban for using a racial slur, but his talents shone long before his name grabbed the headlines...
How NASCAR is gearing up for its "biggest change" in 2022
It’s not just Formula 1 that’s set for upheaval in 2022, as the NASCAR Cup series adopts its Next Gen cars that will cast any in-built advantages aside and require teams to adopt a totally new way of operating. Far more than just a change of machinery, the new cars amount to a shift in NASCAR's core philosophy
Why Bubba Wallace’s Talladega win is such a big moment for NASCAR
Bubba Wallace claimed his maiden NASCAR Cup Series at Talladega on Monday to become the first Black victor in the category since Wendell Scott in 1963. Both Wallace and Scott had faced obstacles and racism in their paths to their breakthrough wins, and NASCAR is trying to put it right with its range of diversity programmes
Why NASCAR's most resilient driver has landed on his feet at 23XI
In a career that has had many ups and downs, Kurt Busch has been written off many times before. But facing career uncertainty after the sale of Chip Ganassi's NASCAR team, the 2004 Cup champion has found a new berth at Denny Hamlin and Michael Jordan's 23XI organization - which underlines his enduring value
From the archive: Dale Earnhardt’s final Autosport interview
The death of Dale Earnhardt in the 2001 Daytona 500 shocked NASCAR to the core. At the Daytona 24 Hours, two weeks before his fatal accident, ‘The Intimidator’ shared his expectations of challenging for an eighth Cup title with JONATHAN INGRAM, in an article first published in the 15 February 2001 issue of Autosport magazine. Little did we know then what tragedy would unfold…
The lasting NASCAR legacy after Dale Earnhardt’s death
On February 18, 2001, seven-time NASCAR Cup champion Dale Earnhardt – the fearless ‘Intimidator’ – was in his element at Daytona International Speedway. While his own DEI team’s cars ran 1-2 towards the finish line, his famed #3 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet Monte Carlo was playing rear gunner to block any late runs from the chasing pack. As the cars tore through Turns 3 and 4 on that fateful final lap, Earnhardt maintained the strongarm tactics that encapsulated his persona… but his actions in those moments sadly proved to be his last.
Inspired by Pitbull, the “revolution” sweeping through NASCAR
The NASCAR Cup Series is changing. Whether it be the gradual morphing out the seasoned drivers of yesterday as the next generation step up, a radical calendar shake-up featuring more road courses than ever before and the prospect of an all-new car on the horizon, stock car racing’s highest level is nearing the end of a huge facelift.
The NASCAR storylines to watch out for in 2021
This weekend's Daytona 500 kickstarts a NASCAR Cup season that promises plenty of intrigue courtesy of new owners and a refreshed calendar. Here's what you need to know ahead of the new season…