Busch optimistic heading into Kansas

KANSAS CITY, KAN. >> The near-misses that have plagued Kyle Busch all season would have eaten away at him earlier in his career, when he was less secure not only of his driving ability but of himself.

He would stew and rage and carry the angst from track to track.

But a lot has happened in a few short years: He sustained serious injuries during a 2015 crash at Daytona, returned that season to win his first Cup championship and along the way watched his wife give birth to a baby boy after they spent years struggling to conceive.

“You put things into a different perspective,” Samantha Busch explained, “so a bad day at the track might have stuck with you ‘til Tuesday, but now you go back to the bus and you have Brexton and you’re so blissfully unaware of everything going on, and he’s still so happy. And it makes things easier for Kyle when things don’t go the right way.”

Samantha paused, then added: “But on the track he’s still Kyle. He’s always going for the win.”

He thought he had it last weekend at Talladega.

Busch led a race-high 48 laps and thought he was positioned to win for the first time this season, only for everything to unravel in overtime. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. roared past him for the win on the last lap, and Jamie McMurray managed to get by to relegate Busch to third.

It was another solid finish. It was also another frustrating one.

“We just weren’t in the right place at the right time, I guess. I thought we were,” Busch said Thursday afternoon at Kansas Speedway, where he’s the defending champion of the spring race.

“We legitimately had a shot to win five races this year, in my mind,” he said. “We’ve been in a position or had a shot to win five different times this year and we just haven’t been able to close the deal. That’s the most frustrating thing for us. We haven’t been able to get to victory lane.”