Maybe it was a sign. That’s not going to mean much to Kyle Busch, who wasn’t able to hold off Christopher Bell at the end of last Sunday’s race at Austin’s Circuit of the Americas and lost for the 60th straight time, but it might mean something for Richard Childress Racing (RCR), the team Busch drives for.
Despite the losing streak, Busch is still one of NASCAR’s most talented drivers. But he is pushing 40 and RCR isn’t the dominating team it once was. And given RCR’s downward slide since the Next-Gen car was introduced in 2022, for example it didn’t score a single point on road courses a year ago according to the OldGUySport Competition Index, the future didn’t look all that bright. Not for Busch, who really has no place better to go even though his contract with RCR expires after this season, and not for RCR itself, which seemed to have dug a hole it couldn’t get out of.
Except…did we mention that RCR didn’t score a single point on road courses a year ago? Yes, we did. But what we didn’t mention was that Busch, while he didn’t win, came in fifth and led much of the race, battling race winner Christopher Bell right to the end until his tires gave out and notching 28 points on the OLdGuySport Competition Index. When you consider that Busch only scored 99 points over the entire 2024 season, that’s quite a feat.
One race does not a season make, especially on a road course, and we will have to see what happens starting this Sunday at Phoenix, the first short track race of the year, and then the next week at Las Vegas, the first intermediate track NASCAR will run on. But it’s possible – we need to be careful here because we don’t have a big enough sample size yet to be more definitive – but it is possible that RCR has found something in the Next-Gen car that will make it more competitive in 2025; a different setup maybe, a better way to manage tire wear, something.
Busch will always have a chance to break his losing streak on a super speedway, because anybody can win at Daytona, Talladega and Atlanta, but if RCR demonstrates it can run as well on short tracks and intermediate ovals as it did on the COTA road course, the odds of Busch getting a win or two go up considerably. And if Busch does win someplace other than a super speedway, the odds on RCR gaining new respect in the garage take a giant leap as well.
NASCAR NOTES
Three most likely winners at Phoenix: 1-Kyle Larson, 2-Ryan Blaney, 3-Denny Hamlin. Last year’s winners at Phoenix: First race: Christopher Bell. Second race: Joey Logano. Top five at COTA last week: 1-Bell, 2-William Byron, 3-Tyler Reddick, 4-Bill Elliott, 5-Kyle Busch. OldGuySport’s COTA picks: 1-Bell, 2-Byron, 3-Larson. Bell wins, OGS 1-0 for season. Top 10 in OldGuySport Competition Index after one race: 1-Bell, 54 points; 2-Byron 40, 3-Reddick 35, 4-Busch 28, 5-Elliott 20, 6-Shane van Gisbergen 11, T7-Bubba Wallace 2, Ryan Preece 2. (only eight drivers scored points in the first race.) Top 10 on road courses: Same.