Over the next several weeks, I’ll be doing a year in review of each NASCAR Playoff driver’s season, but before I dive into the gilded group, let’s look at the drivers that missed out on a golden ticket to the postseason.
This particular group will consist of the first four drivers out of the Playoffs: Chris Buescher, Bubba Wallace, Ross Chastain, and Kyle Busch.
Having to race a day earlier than initially expected, Kyle Busch and the #8 team took to the LA Memorial Coliseum short track for the first unofficial race of 2024 where he matched his performance from the inaugural event by coming home second to a former teammate, this time being Denny Hamlin.
For the twentieth consecutive season, Busch entered Speedweeks with just one thing on his mind: the Harley J. Earl Trophy that has eluded him since he was a teenager.
He had to watch former teammates Hamlin and Joey Logano score victories in the Great American Race. Though Busch contended in the late stages of many 500s before this, he’d never ended the day with his number at the top of the pylon.
A key to a strong Speedweeks is a great Duel race, proving that you can take your car wherever you need to be in order to gain an advantage. For much of the opening stages of the second Duel race, it appeared like Richard Childress Racing gave the two-time Cup champion a strong machine to compete with on Sunday.
Those hopes went up in a cloud of smoke when he bumped a suddenly-slowing William Byron in the trioval, sending the #24 Axalta Chevy spinning into the field, pulling Ryan Blaney’s Peak Mustang into the outside wall directly in the path of Busch.
Busch started his 19th Daytona 500 in 34th place, but as we all know, your qualifying position can be irrelevant at a superspeedway as long as you have a solid car. What muddied the waters for Busch was this being a backup car, not the car they’d spent months preparing for the sport’s biggest race.
While the Las Vegas native earned stage points in the first two stages, his zOne Chevy nearly lost a wheel during a pit stop prior to the final stage, putting him at the back of the pack.
Despite the big wreck unfolding in front of him, Busch avoided the tattered remains of his fellow competitors’ cars and made it through unscathed. His charge on the high groove in the final few laps fizzled out, and he finished the weekend a respectable 12th.
Kyle Busch’s first brush with victory came in Atlanta the following week. The Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen Chevy Camaro flashed speed on Saturday by logging a third-place qualifying effort that allowed him to avoid the lap 2 calamity on Sunday.
After pacing the field for the opening laps under yellow, the 20-year veteran nabbed stage points in stage 1 and worked his way back up to the front as the laps wound down. On the final restart, it was clear the race would likely be decided by Busch, defending series champion Ryan Blaney, and Trackhouse’s Daniel Suárez.
The final five laps ran under green with Suárez leading the field. Over the next four laps, Blaney would wrestle the lead away from the Mexican racer, giving the BodyArmor Ford the lead when they reached the white flag.
Leading the bottom lane for the first half of the lap, Rowdy made his move, darting to the outside of Blaney, sandwiching himself between the two leaders with about a half-mile to go.
All three drivers raced clean all the way to the line with Suárez coming out on top over Blaney by .003 and Busch by .007, securing the third-closest finish in NASCAR Cup Series history. As devastating as it is to lose by a matter of inches, Busch’s first two races inspired confidence from fans into the #8 team early on.
Busch took to his hometown for the third round of the 2024 season and rode great pit strategy to a great finish in stage 1 but a pit penalty in the final stage dropped Busch down the running order, ending the day a disappointing 26th.
An equally awful day in Phoenix the next week failed to dampen the NASCAR legend’s mood heading into his best track in Bristol, but Thunder Valley failed to offer one of its best racers any reprieve as a new tire compound went against RCR’s setup for the short half-mile, leading to his third sub-20th-place finish in a row.
In major need of a good result, Busch headed back east to Circuit of the Americas where his Mark III Employee Benefits Chevy rolled off the grid 16th. Instead of staying out at the end of each stage for points, Busch opted to follow the leader’s strategy in hopes of getting a caution. This led to his first top-10 since Atlanta.
His second year as an RCR driver began heading the wrong way again the next two weeks at Richmond and Martinsville where Busch struggled to stay in the top-15. In his return to the state of Texas, Busch shook off early-race incidents to rally for a 9th-place result.
The #8 Cheddar’s Camaro may have finished at Talladega the next week, but that isn’t the whole story. With less than 10 laps to go, Busch rode comfortably in the top-10, poised to make a move to put himself at the front of the field to repeat as spring race winner.
When he popped out with time running out, no one came with him. He went from the top-10 all the way down into the mid-20s, sliding across the line in 27th. Rather than let that bad run get him down, Busch kept moving forward where he secured his only pole of 2024 at Dover.
Kyle led the first 33 laps of the Wurth 400 before giving way to Ryan Blaney, coming home 7th in stage 1 before slotting in one slot ahead of that in stage 2. In what became his second-best points day of the season, Busch brought the FICO Chevy back in one piece, good enough for a fourth-place run and 42 points.
The patron saint of chicken tenders returned to his rightful throne behind the wheel of the Cheddar’s car for the first Kansas race where a fifth-place starting spot led to points in both stages and contending for a top-5 late in the going.
That is, until Busch clipped the apron with seven laps to go, setting the stage for an Overtime finish.
Starting the final two laps in 19th position, the two-time champion drove just like the Kyle Busch people came to know in the late-2010s: aggressive but fair, slicing through the field over the final three miles to come home in eighth. It could’ve been worse after spinning out of fifth.
Forgettable days at Darlington and Charlotte over the next two weeks bracketed an eventful All-Star weekend in North Wilkesboro when Kyle took exception to Ricky Stenhouse not giving him enough room on lap 1. Busch delivered payback going into turn 1 on lap 2, tossing Stenhouse’s #47 into the outside wall.
The contact ended Stenhouse’s night prematurely, so the 2023 Daytona 500 champ waited on Busch to be done with the race near the team haulers.
Words and fists were exchanged between Stenhouse and Busch, a fracas that even included Ricky Stenhouse Sr. getting in on the action. The altercation had minimal fallout for Busch as Stenhouse Jr. received an exorbitant $75,000 fine for initiating contact.
With the halfway point of the regular season in the rear view, Busch’s performance took a notable dip to start June when he and Kyle Larson got into a measuring contest of sorts towards the end of stage 2. Neither driver measured up in that moment with both cars suffering significant damage.
Larson’s damage wasn’t terminal, allowing him to rebound for a top-10 while Busch had to watch the end of the race from the garage area with a damaged race car.
His fortunes appeared to turn the next week at Sonoma when a great strategy call from crew chief Randall Burnett put Busch in the top-5 with one lap remaining. Two problems with that: Ross Chastain was coming, and Busch was conserving fuel.
A nudge from Chastain into turn 4a sent Busch around, allowing a few cars to pass, but he still figured to make it to the end of the lap in the top-10. That wouldn’t be the case as the seasoned veteran ran out of gas on his way to the finish, limping home without power in 12th.
Little did he know that would be his best result of the month. A water pump issue while near the front in Iowa followed by a pair of accidents at a rainy Loudon race that put him out of the event early resulted in back-to-back 35th-place finishes.
In a great situation at Nashville the following week after the first two Overtimes saw a few drivers ahead of him fall out due to crashing or running out of fuel. On the third restart, Busch got knocked out of his third-straight race, this time due to Larson running out of fuel ahead of him, resulting in a domino effect that put Busch’s zOne/Thornton’s Chevy out of commission.
By the time the Chicago Street Course rolled around in early July, it had been since Cinco de Mayo since the younger Busch brother earned a top-10, and against all odds, Kyle weathered the storm (literally and figuratively) to snag his third 9th-place run of 2024.
The great run at a track Kyle wasn’t familiar with could’ve sent a spark into the team. Whatever momentum the team had going into Pocono was lost after qualifying and even more so after a Chevy teammate put Busch in danger during the race.
Then-Spire Motorsports driver Corey Lajoie punted Kyle into turn 1 on a late restart, Busch’s car screeching into a pack of screaming cars on a restart after a run down the longest oval straightaway in the sport.
The wreck collected a litany of cars and put Busch out of the race for the fifth time in the last seven events.
With Playoff spots drying up left and right, Kyle Busch knew he had to do something to lob his #8 team into the postseason, something he hadn’t missed since it was still called the Chase.
Right before the Olympic break, Busch submitted an inspired effort at Indianapolis where he’d won two years in a row when he raced for Gibbs, cruising all the way into the top-5 as the laps clicked off the board.
It would’ve been easy for Kyle to call it a day and take home the great finish, but that’s just not in Kyle’s DNA.
Hamlin took a less-than-ideal line into turn 3, giving Busch an opportunity to go a bit lower to complete the pass. Instead, Busch took a lot of room, entered the corner shallow, and lost grip before tagging the left side of Hamlin’s car and spinning out. The contact brought about a wrist injury Busch would race with for the remainder of 2024.
In an odd turn of events, Busch — who holds the record for the best average finish in the history of Richmond Raceway — wasn’t the RCR driver with the attention on him for something nefarious done on the track, starting and ending the night in 12th.
Brilliant strategy calls in week 24 at Michigan allowed Busch to sneak a stage 2 victory. The Lucas Oil Camaro stayed in the hunt for the win even as the race descended into double Overtime madness riding his way to his first top-5 since Atlanta, the second race of the season.
When most of the field wiped out at Daytona the following race, Busch led the field into Overtime, controlling the race for the first lap while switching between the two lanes.
On the backstretch, Busch opted to guard the low line, blocking Christopher Bell and attempting to use the #20 car’s power to propel him to a victory. Harrison Burton had other plans.
Burton streaked by on the outside with Parker Retzlaff in-tow. Busch tried to mount another charge coming out of turn 4, but for free he’d have to turn Harrison in order to win, Kyle elected to race cleanly and accept his result. It was a refreshingly mature moment for a driver that had struggled with his anger.
With just one race left before the Playoffs, all bets were off when the field visited the Lady in Black.
Busch’s Morgan & Morgan Chevy rose from the 17th starting spot to put himself in position to compete for the win due to great strategy calls from Burnett. With a three-lap tire advantage over leader Chase Briscoe, the two drivers were going to battle it out till the very end for that coveted Playoff spot.
Busch rode in Briscoe’s tire tracks for much of the final 10 laps or so, never able to pull alongside and letting Briscoe get away from him before Busch was able to get to the #14’s bumper. He fell just one spot short of making the postseason, one where he was practically a lock to make it every single year.
Entering the Playoffs on a heater, Busch looked to change his regular-season fortunes in the postseason, even if he “had nothing to race for” in the final 10 events. He kept his top-10 streak alive in Atlanta before a tumultuous day at Watkins Glen the next week was ruined less than a into the event.
With the first round ending on a sour note in Bristol, Busch surged into Kansas where he began the day in third. Throughout the day, Kyle’s car started to come to him, rising into the points by the end of stage 2.
Ross Chastain took the lead near the opening of stage 3 and held onto it for almost 30 laps when Busch filled up Chastain’s rearview mirror. The two-time Cup champion held the lead for a few laps before pitting and ultimately found himself fighting once again with Chastain once green-flag stops fully cycled.
Now that the competition was behind him, it should have been smooth sailing for KFB. Instead, a recent foe reappeared: Chase Briscoe. Down on his luck, Briscoe sat outside the top-20, which was not an ideal start for his Playoff hopes.
Busch remarked after the Southern 500 that he elected to race Briscoe clean, harkening back to a comment he made the week before that in Daytona when he mentioned he could’ve turned Harrison Burton coming to the line and elected not to do so.
Rather than reflect Busch’s respect, the #14 faded high into Kyle’s line on corner exit, leading to the #8 clipping the outside wall and spinning from the lead. Absolutely brutal.
Instead of fighting for the win, Busch ended the day 19th. Following a crash that took out most of the field at Talladega, Kyle rode third in line in the higher groove on the Overtime restart.
If you’ve been paying attention to this point, let me ask you: What do you think Kyle Busch did late in the going at a superspeedway? He went to the outside and attempted to form a third line heading into turn 1 on the final lap, falling from 5th to 19th.
From there, the winningest driver in NASCAR national series history slumped to the finish, scoring two 13th-place results at the Roval and Vegas before finishing 31st, 28th, and 21st at Homestead, Martinsville, and Phoenix, respectively.
This led to Busch notched a 20th-place points finish, tying a career-low set in his rookie season. Even worse, it was the first year of his career where he failed to record a victory, breaking a NASCAR-record 19-year streak.
What Went Wrong
A more apt question for this specific driver might have been: What didn’t go wrong?
Quiet as it’s kept, several Chevy teams struggled to get out of the gate on their third season with the same Camaro body while Ford and Toyota entered 2024 with new and improved bodies.
In fact, only Suárez and the four Hendrick cars punched their tickets to the Playoffs while formidable veterans like Busch and Chastain missed out.
Kyle’s struggles with the NextGen have popped up before because he used to drive his car off of the right-rear tire, something that’s practically impossible in the current generation.
More concerning going forward is the fact that RCR produced just one great car all season between its two full-time teams, and it went to Austin Dillon at Richmond. They haven’t exactly given their champion a car capable of winning in over a year-and-a-half.
At the end of the day, Busch failed to pull the trigger and get aggressive in moments where he traditionally (say it with me, class) gets rowdy; it led to him going the entire year winless.
Looking Ahead to 2025
There was once an RCR driver that won a championship or two who went winless the year prior to his 20th appearance in the Great American Race.
Knowing their prowess at superspeedways over the years, I have to imagine Kyle wants to win as soon as possible, and there’s no better place to end a drought than Daytona in February.
Yes, I am calling it now: Kyle Busch is my pick to win the Daytona 500. The race is pretty much a crapshoot anyway, so why not take a flyer on a guy that’s hungrier than anyone else in the garage.
Outside of that, I’d like to think RCR’s short-track performance will improve as well as their intermediate program, though there’s not much in 2024’s performance to indicate those turnarounds are possible.
There is no way that Rowdy Busch will want to bring last year’s negativity into 2025. Let’s hope RCR can give him the cars capable of winning races again.
Possible 2025 Wins: Daytona 500, Bristol spring, Mexico City
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