When it comes to honesty, Kyle Busch doesn’t mince words.
This season was a new page in Busch’s legendary NASCAR Cup Series career as he moved from Joe Gibbs Racing to Richard Childress Racing during the offseason.
While three victories and a playoff berth were all positives during his first season driving the No. 8 Chevrolet, Busch felt there was more to be desired during the 36-race season.
“I mean, I would say arguably, it wasn’t as successful as I’d hoped it to be,” Busch admitted. “But, we started the season really strong, they obviously had really good processes and procedures and things. Cars were maybe a little bit ahead of their time, in the beginning of the year where we were more competitive.”
Busch made the most of the team’s advantage at the start of the season by nearly winning the season-opening Daytona 500 in February and notching his first win with the team one week later at California’s Auto Club Speedway.
The team found more first-year magic at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway in April along with a third win at World Wide Technology Raceway in Illinois to kick off the summer.
Seven consecutive top 10s between May and July highlighted a stellar campaign in the making for Busch. Though it began to deteriorate with the NASCAR Playoffs nearing.
“But, as the season wore on, we lost a little bit of that advantage,” Busch said. “And it seemed like everybody kind of caught up to what was going on and what we had been doing. It hindered us a little bit the second half of the year.”
The end result for the 38-year-old was an early playoff exit in the Round of 12.
Busch, however, sees a silver lining through the ebbs and flows of his 20th full-time Cup Series season.
“If we could have finished how we started, that certainly would have been a heck of a lot better,” Busch said. “But all things considered, I thought it was a good first year, and we’ve got a lot of things that we keep conversing on and putting on the table for what we can work on for next year.”
As for next season, Busch’s main goal is more consistency. How does he reach that goal?
Better understanding the Next Gen car’s subtle tendencies.
“For us, we had some highs and a lot of lows and a lot of DNFs. Just trying to figure out more about this car for me and how to drive it,” Busch said. “The car always trends loose.
“So, me trending loose being over the tire, over the peak of the tire, I spin out and crash too many times. So, gotta hone in on that and fix that. You’re gonna have days of 12th-15th. But, how do you put that in your mind that you can be able to do that, or that you can accept that, and just take the finish.”