Kyle Busch is kicking off the 2026 season with the serious intentions of winning races, after spending the last two years struggling to get great results. It’s been a while since he won, and his pole in Daytona seems to have lit a fire in him.
Over the past two seasons, Busch has knocked on the winning door more than once. Some days ended in wrecks when the pack stacked up. On other days, an engine let go, the car’s balance was off, or a pit stop went sideways. When he jumped from Joe Gibbs Racing to Richard Childress Racing in 2023, he hit the ground running with three wins in his first year. But since then, the tide has not flowed the same way.
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Still, Busch insists that the drive never left him. Speaking toFOX8 WGHP, he pushed back on the noise that kept saying ‘he can’t do it’.
“Absolutely, I think there’s a lot of people out there that want to be detractors and want to say that you’re too old, you can’t do it, this and that. And I’m like, all I did was move from Joe Gibbs Racing to Richard Childress Racing, and when I first got here, we won three races in one year,” the 40-year-old said.
“So it’s just a matter of putting all the right people in all the right places and having the things kind of go your way,” he continued. “So again, a lot of different things that can happen in this business that can set you forward or bring you back, and so we want to get back up towards the front.”
Buschalready stands as the winningest active driver in the field, with 63 Cup wins across 750 starts over 22 years, plus titles in 2015 and 2019. The trophy case is full, but his appetite has not faded, despite the heartbreaks.
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Busch is yearning to win the Daytona 500 race
The one prize that keeps Busch pacing is the Daytona 500, a trophy that continues to elude him. He has led more than 340 laps in the race without sealing the deal, the most by any driver still chasing that victory.
Days before Busch’s 21st attempt, he put it in terms anyone can grasp. “If you were eating and you haven’t eaten in 22 years, you’d be pretty hungry, right?”
“So that’s a race I certainly want to shout out on and win and check the box for, we’ve been able to accomplish it. It’s been a long time. I mean, we’ve been ‘Oh so close’ there a few times, more so since being at RCR. I’ve had some really, really good chances of winning that race,” the Richard Childressdriver declared.
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In his Busch’s first Daytona 500 with RCR, he led at the 500-mile mark, running nose to tail with Austin Dillon. A caution set up over time, the field shuffled, and a last-lap crash dropped him to 19th. In 2019, he finished second behind Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin in a 1-2 result. In 2021, he lined up with a shot at the win on the final lap before a wreck triggered by Joey Logano swept him up, leaving him 14th.
And that pattern has played out more than that in his 20 tries. But now he heads back with the new Chevrolet body and the No. 8 team, aiming to put himself in the mix again. At some point, he hopes the cards fall his way and the Daytona 500 checkered flag lands in his hands.
The post “You Are Too Old You Can’t Do It”: Kyle Busch Wants to Prove Detractors Wrong appeared first on The SportsRush.
