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By Ronald Young
As the Cup Series heads out west for races this week it appears that Kyle Busch and his RCR team may be on an upswing after they scored their first top -5 finish of the season at COTA on Sunday since the Southern 500 at Darlington in September.
Charging from his 8th starting position Busch took the lead midway through the race and proceeded to lead 42 laps. If not for a late race caution that erased a sizable cushion when his teammate Austin Dillon got stuck in a gravel pit Busch might have been able to hold off William Byron and Christopher Bell for the win.
Instead Busch had to protect the lead with older tires when his rivals closed to his rear bumper.
“That caution definitely hurt us,” Busch said. “That is not what we needed. Hated that we got that but I knew it was going to be a battle like it was there to the end.
Busch was able to hold off a hard charging Christopher Bell on the restart for several laps but ultimately he faded to a 5th place finish after he and Bell made contact through the esses on the tight road course.
After the race Busch was complimentary of the way he was raced by his former Joe Gibbs Racing teammate.
“He was very gracious and very clean for how I was and what I was doing,” Busch said. “I was cutting him off and blocking and doing all the stupid stuff that you need to do to try to protect the lead, but he was much faster than me and was able to just do a good job of biding his time and waiting for me to make a couple of mistakes in a row.”
Mired in a 60 race winless streak Busch struggled much of last season to get himself and the team up to speed. Strong runs at Daytona and Atlanta prior to COTA has the veteran racer optimistic.
“There were times last year that we definitely had race cars that were capable of winning and we would have bad pit stops or we’d get caught up in a crash and get taken out,” Busch said on Sirius XM recently. “Other days I would screw up and we would not get the finish we deserved.”
“It seems like with this Gen 7 car, for me anyway, I have not been able to push this car to the limit like I was the older car, ” Busch said. “ I’ve got the same cars as everybody else out here so it’s up to me to do a better job and get the most out of the car each week.”
Busch noted that to get the best results out of this car the attention to detail is very important since all teams have essentially the same parts.
“It all comes from how the cars are being built in the different facilities,” Busch stated. “What little nicks and tricks can you find? The speed is made at the race shop and then you’re just working on fine tuning the balance and getting the car comfortable when you get to the race track.
“I would like to think we are better than we were last year,” Busch added. “We had some good hires over the offseason to bring in some good engineers from other teams to up our performance.
“ The next test is definitely going to be the next two weeks going to Phoenix, a short track, a place where we have struggled as of late to see how we can turn that program around,” Busch said. “ I feel like a legit top -10 run and top -10 finish there would be like a win for us right now.”
“And then going back to Vegas, a place where it’s home for me and I’d really love to win there. We were fast there last year and we’d love to repeat that speed to go race for a win. I think that will be a true test of where we really fall.”
The Cup Series runs at Phoenix on Sunday and can be seen at 3:30 p.m. Eastern on FS 1.
