New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Busch out to prove he is still best in NASCAR
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Call him Kyle Busch, call him by one of his nicknames or call him the most prolific active driver in NASCAR.
No matter the moniker, “KFB” needed just three starts to get back to victory lane with his new employer. Busch finished third in NASCAR’s preseason exhibition race and was the leader on the scheduled final lap of the Daytona 500 before the race went to double overtime.
At race three, on Sunday at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California, Busch scored his first win in his new No. 8 Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing. It snapped a 28-race skid, came at the site of his first career Cup Series win in 2005 and was a victory in his 19th consecutive season, breaking a record he shared with Richard Petty.
By all indications, Busch’s fast start with RCR hould be problematic to his challengers. If they’ve got a problem with what very well might be a season-long redemption tour, they can take it up with Joe Gibbs and Austin Dillon.
It was Gibbs who after 15 seasons allowed Busch to hit the free agent market because longtime sponsor M&M’s was leaving NASCAR. And it was Dillon who persuaded Childress, his grandfather, to bring Busch over to fledgling RCR.
Mind you, Busch didn’t have a ton of options when it became clear that his time in the No. 18 Toyota had come to an end. Tyler Reddick showed last year that RCR had rebounded enough to win some races, but the reality is the Chevrolet team had won just eight total Cup races in eight years and its last Cup title was in 1994 with the late Dale Earnhardt.
Even so, Childress was willing to take on the driver he once tried to beat up for wrecking another RCR driver. Now “Rowdy” seems determined to disrupt NASCAR’s season.
Kyle Larson, who returned from a nearly yearlong suspension in 2021 to win 10 races and the Cup title while routing the competition, celebrated the win by his new Chevrolet teammate.
“The guy is one of the best race car drivers of all time and will always be,” Larson posted on Twitter after the race. “I’m glad it only took him 2 races to remind the world.”
Busch, a two-time Cup champion who with 61 wins — most of all active drivers — ranks ninth on NASCAR’s all-time list, has a clean slate with a new team eager to embrace him. Busch is one of the most technical and car savvy drivers, and he gives RCR and Chevrolet an immediate professor to help improve its cars. His 225 victories across all three NASCAR national series is a record.
With all that good comes the bad and the ugly.
His moodiness, sarcasm and propensity for landing himself in sticky situations doesn’t matter to Childress, who was only interested in hiring a winning driver. The fans seem OK with it, too: Busch has always been one of NASCAR’s most polarizing drivers but received a rousing ovation during his celebratory bows to the crowd.