NASCAR Cup Series: Kyle Busch makes history with hot start to 2019 season

Kyle Busch became the first driver in the last 27 seasons to start off a NASCAR Cup Series season with eight consecutive top 10 finishes.

Joe Gibbs Racing’s Kyle Busch entered the eighth race of the 2019 NASCAR Cup Series season, the Food City 500, at Bristol Motor Speedway with an impressive average finish of 3.86 through the season’s first seven races.

On top of that, the 33-year-old Las Vegas, Nevada native had not yet finished a race outside of the top 10 all season long, and he had only finished outside of the top three twice and outside of the top six once.

But all of these impressive statistics appeared slated to change not even a minute after the green flag dropped to get this 500-lap race around the four-turn, 0.533-mile (0.858-kilometer) high-banked Bristol Motor Speedway oval in Bristol, Tennessee underway.

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Busch started toward the middle of the 37-car field for this race, as he started back in 17th place. Shortly after the race began, Roush Fenway Racing’s Ricky Stenhouse Jr. hit Busch’s #18 Toyota from behind, sending it spinning and causing it to suffer a decent amount of damage.

This incident closely resembled what happened to Busch at the beginning of last August’s race at the track, which sent him multiple laps down. However, he battled back and was in contention for the victory before he was involved in another wreck late in that race.

History repeated itself, but this time, Busch actually won at the track where he had previously earned 21 NASCAR victories, including seven Cup Series victory.

As a result, Busch’s average finishing position through the season’s first eight races is an impressive 3.50, and he has still not finished a single race outside of the top 10. In fact, his top 10 finish streak is up to 10 races, as he closed out the 2018 season with a victory in the penultimate race of the season at ISM Raceway and a fourth place finish in the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Prior to Busch’s eight-race top 10 streak to start the 2019 season, the most recent streak of eight consecutive top 10 finishes to open up a season was Terry Labonte’s streak to open up the 1992 season.

While Busch has already earned three victories in the 2019 season, Labonte did not win any of the first eight races of the 1992 season, although he did not finish any of them outside of the top nine, either. His top finishes during this eight-race span were fourth place finishes in the races at Bristol Motor Speedway and Martinsville Speedway, and his average finishing position was 7.13.

Labonte ended up finishing in 36th place in the 1992 season’s ninth race at Talladega Superspeedway to bring his streak to an end, so Busch will have a chance to surpass this mark with another top 10 finish in this Saturday night’s race at Richmond Raceway, the Toyota Owners 400.

Labonte’s eight-race streak of top 10 finishes to open up a season was the first of its kind since Morgan Shepherd opened up the 1990 season with 11 consecutive top 10 finishes.

Shepherd did not win any of the 11 races in which he competed during this span, as he recorded a top finish of second place in the race at Atlanta Motor Speedway. His average finishing position during this 11-race span was 6.27.

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Will Kyle Busch extend his top 10 streak to start off the 2019 NASCAR Cup Series season to nine races with a top 10 finish in this Saturday night’s race at Richmond Raceway, a track at which he won both Cup Series races last season? The live broadcast of this race, the Toyota Owners 400, is set to air on Fox beginning at 7:30 p.m. ET. If so, can he catch and surpass Morgan Shepherd’s 11-race streak of top 10 finishes to open up the 1990 season?

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