The 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season has not been kind to Kyle Busch.
Exhibit A: Busch being bumped off the course last week on the final lap of the Toyota/SaveMart 350 at Sonoma Raceway by Ross Chastain. While Busch was still able to finish 12th, he once led the race and was running fifth before Chastain made contact with him on the final lap.
The only driver who had a worse day than Busch was Denny Hamlin, whose car suffered a blown engine going into Lap 3, which ended his day.
On the latest edition of “Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour,” host Kevin Harvick offered his support for Busch.
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“I’m starting to feel sorry for Kyle Busch because of everything that is happening,” Harvick said. “He wrecked last week with Kyle Larson at St. Louis. Went to Indy for the tire test, crashed. Heard some rumblings that he crashed his rental car. We got there, he ran off the track in practice. Then, he ran off the track at the beginning of the race and then gathers it all up. It’s like, driving along, ‘I’m going to have a good day, finally going to get over this mess’ and then ‘wham,’ Ross Chastain wipes him out and overshoots Turns 4 and spins him out.
“He still finished the race, but he was in contention to have another top-five [finish] and kind of stop the bleeding, but, man, that wound’s still open.”
A week earlier, Busch’s accident with Larson at the Enjoy Illinois 300 ended his day after 139 laps.
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Busch is now 15th in the Cup Series in total points (380) this season and has yet to reach victory lane. Furthermore, he has just two top-five finishes, five top-10 finishes and hasn’t finished in the top 10 since the AdventHealth 400 — excluding the All-Star Race.
Busch has 63 career Cup Series wins, which is first among active drivers, and is a two-time Cup Series champion (2015 and 2019). He’s in his second season at Richard Childress Racing after spending the previous 15 seasons at Joe Gibbs Racing and four seasons beforehand — three full time — at Hendrick Motorsports.
Kevin Harvick on Kyle Busch’s struggles this season
Harvick feels that Busch will rebound and be victorious again.
“He’s won a race 19 seasons in a row. He thinks about stuff like that because he’s a winner,” Harvick said of Busch. “He wants to win. He’s so competitive that we see all these mistakes and spinouts and different things happen because he’s pushing extra hard. He is getting everything he can out of that car. It’s in practice; it’s in qualifying; it’s in racing, and that’s just how he’s built. It’s caught up with him a little bit because of the fact that he’s had so many problems, but this one was not of his making.”
Busch will aim to turn a corner this Sunday at the Iowa Corn 350.
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