NASCAR: Kurt Busch Following Path Similar To Newman, Gordon

Kurt Busch managed to make it to the Round of 8, but the path he took to get there is similar to what we’ve seen from other NASCAR stars in recent years.

When you were making your Chase grid for NASCAR’s 2016 postseason, did you have Kurt Busch making it to the round of 8? Probably not since there were drivers from other teams–like Joe Gibbs Racing, Hendrick Motorsports and Team Penske–that had enjoyed much better seasons.

But somehow, Busch managed to work his way into the third round of the Chase, and he’s following a path that we’ve seen in each of the first two seasons of the current format.

Take Ryan Newman in 2014 for instance. Though he didn’t register a win in the regular season, he fought his way into the Chase on points. Over the course of the next nine weeks, he put together solid performances that led to a berth in the Championship 4 and a chance to race for the championship at Homestead.

Then there’s Jeff Gordon’s run in 2015. Gordon failed to win a regular season race but earned solid finishes and avoided trouble in order to race his way to the Round of 8 where he would win at Martinsville and clinch his spot in the Championship 4.

Now go back to Busch. Unlike the two drivers mentioned above, he did win a regular season race (Pocono), but his performances in the Chase so far have not been spectacular.

He has two top-5’s, a top-10 and three top-15’s. That’s solid, but it’s not as good as some of the other Chasers and he certainly hasn’t competed for a win in any of the six races so far. But one thing he has done is this: he’s avoided major trouble and stayed away from all of the season-impacting wrecks that have occurred.

So let’s compare. Through the first six races of the Chase, Newman had an average finish of 9.8 in 2014, Gordon had an average finish of 9.0 in 2015 and Busch has an average finish of 9.7 this year (via racing-reference.info).

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These three drivers have basically ran the same Chase in three different seasons as none of them really competed for a win in the first two rounds but instead, earned solid finishes and stayed out of trouble.

It seems like the most consistent stat for these three drivers is their performances at Talladega. In each of the three runs mentioned, the driver has earned a top-5 at the superspeedway, which has ultimately pushed them through to the next round.

In the end, both Newman and Gordon went on to the Championship 4, but does Busch have what it takes to move on? Yes, and here’s why:

He has at least one win at each of the upcoming three tracks–Martinsville, Texas and Phoenix–but it’s his consistent racing that will do the trick. After Talladega, Busch had the most points among drivers without a win in the Round of 12, and there was an 11-point gap between him and the next driver, which was mostly because of JGR’s strategy to stay near the back of the pack.

Even then, Busch would’ve safely made it to the Round of 8 without having to worry about a late-race rally from one of the drivers below the cut line.

Busch has operated under the radar for the majority of the season. He hasn’t been one of the most talked about drivers but he has a 2016 average finish of 11.7, and he even started off the season with 14 top-10’s in 16 races including ten in a row from Texas to Sonoma.

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While Kurt Busch certainly isn’t a title favorite, his solid finishes could end up getting him to the Championship 4. Keep an eye on him as the next three weeks unfold and we see who will be competing for the title at Homestead.