Kyle Busch, in career-long Cup Series slump, inches closer to snapping the skid

In the back room of a Spec’s, the Texas liquor store chain with Texas-sized buildings, Kyle Busch was signing bottle after bottle of bourbon. The bottom of the “B” in his signature swooped down into a large oval, resembling many of the NASCAR tracks on which he has won a record 232 times.

Just 48 hours after his liquor store appearance, he nearly made it 233.

Though Busch last won a NASCAR Cup Series race in June 2023, a career-long 60-race winless streak, you wouldn’t have known it by how he raced at Austin’s Circuit of the Americas last weekend. He led a race-high 42 laps and had a potential race-winning strategy ruined by a late caution flag; despite Busch’s best efforts, eventual winner Christopher Bell passed him with six laps remaining.

“He was incredibly gracious and very clean for what I was doing,” Busch said. “I was cutting him off and blocking and doing all the stupid stuff you need to do to try to protect the lead.”

Fans cheered Busch loudly before the race. Some expressed disappointment on social media when he failed to close out the win, and applauded his sportsmanship in how he reacted to Bell’s victory (which included a visit to the winner’s stage to shake Bell’s hand).

That’s the polar opposite of how Busch was viewed by fans for most of his career. Maybe it’s because he hasn’t won as much during his late 30s (he turns 40 in May). Maybe it’s because, as a father of two, he’s mellowed a bit.

Yet the COTA race showed Busch isn’t washed up yet, as did his master class of a Truck Series win two weeks ago at Atlanta Motor Speedway. But there have been some doubts based on his results.

In a period of 12 season, from 2008-19, Busch won at least four races nine times. He once made NASCAR’s Championship 4 in five straight years and won two titles. Since the 2020 pandemic season, his results have fallen off a cliff; Busch has finished no better than eighth in the standings and won just seven races over those five-plus years — completely unacceptable for a driver who holds himself to the standard of legends.

Those in the know have blamed three main factors.

First, NASCAR greatly reduced practice time during and after the pandemic; Busch is a driver whose expert ability to diagnose his car’s handling has helped the crew chief fix it to his liking over the course of a weekend, and that time to work on it was largely diminished. Second, NASCAR’s Next Gen car, which debuted in 2022, hasn’t suited Busch. Third, Busch was a victim of his own success; he frequently won in lower series races so often that NASCAR made a “Kyle Busch Rule” to cap the number of starts a Cup Series driver can make in those races (five per year).

Are the pundits correct in their assessments?

“You have to agree with it, because those are the things that have changed,” Busch said. “The schedule of the race weekends and not having as much practice time, the schedule of not being able to participate as much in the Xfinity and the Truck Series races. Maybe I’m a creature of habit, and I just like being out there and doing all of that.”

COTA would seem like an indication Busch can return to victory lane this season after several close calls last year denied him the continuation of a 19-year consecutive wins streak — the all-time NASCAR record. But the real test begins at Phoenix Raceway this weekend and continues in Busch’s hometown of Las Vegas next week, when the Cup Series races its first non-drafting ovals of the season.

Except RCR hasn’t seen any of its cars win a race on a track of those sizes since Busch did it two years ago. If Busch still has it, then it must be the cars’ fault, right?

“It’s not a knock on RCR at all,” he said. “We’re all busting our butts and everybody in Welcome, North Carolina (where RCR is headquartered), is a fighter. They’re down to the nitty-gritty of it to put together some good cars, and that’s what we’re all working toward.

“It takes not just me to be able to win, it takes the guys sweeping the floors to be able to win. It’s just all got to be there and it’s all got to be together.”