NASCAR: Kyle Busch still searching for elusive final crown jewel win

Kyle Busch has done just about everything in his NASCAR Cup Series career. But after 15 tries, he is still left seeking his first Daytona 500 victory.

Kyle Busch may be only 34 years old, but he has already accomplished more than most NASCAR Cup Series drivers have ever accomplished in their careers.

Last season, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver added five victories to shoot up to ninth place on the all-time wins list with 56, passing Lee Petty (54) and Rusty Wallace (55) in the process.

He now trails only Richard Petty (200), David Pearson (105), Jeff Gordon (93), Bobby Allison (84), Darrell Waltrip (84), Jimmie Johnson (83), Cale Yarborough (83) and Dale Earnhardt (76) in that category.

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He also added his second career championship, which is also his second in the last five years. He is now tied for 10th place on the all-time titles list, trailing only Richard Petty (seven), Earnhardt (seven), Johnson (seven), Gordon (four), Lee Petty (three), Pearson (three), Yarborough (three), Waltrip (three) and Tony Stewart (three).

Busch has won at least one race in each of his first 15 full seasons of Cup Series competition. His 15-year winning streak trails only the streaks of Petty (18 years from 1960 to 1977), Pearson (17 years from 1964 to 1980) and Johnson (16 years from 2002 to 2017), so just one win in 2020 would put him behind only Petty and Pearson with just the second streak of at least 16 years in the last four decades.

Additionally, Busch has won everywhere he has competed (the lone exception being the Charlotte Motor Speedway roval layout), and he solidified himself as the only driver in the modern era to pull that off with a win in the crown jewel Coca-Cola 600 race at Charlotte Motor Speedway in May of 2018. He is officially 23 for 23 in this category.

Wins at every track on the schedule mean that he has also won just about every crown jewel race. In addition to his Coca-Cola 600 win, he is a two-time Brickyard 400 champion (2015 and 2016) at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and he won the Southern 500 at Darlington Speedway back in 2008. He also won the Aaron’s 499 at Talladega Superspeedway in the same year.

He did win at Daytona International Speedway before back in 2008 as well. But the one crown jewel win that still eludes him is the Daytona 500.

In 15 attempts, Busch has never won the “Great American Race”, and this is something that he wants to change more than anything else. The Las Vegas, Nevada native has only finished in the top 10 in this race on four occasions, with two of those top 10 finishes coming in the last five years.

Among active drivers, no driver has competed in the race more than he has without winning it aside of teammate Martin Truex Jr. (0 for 16). Stewart-Haas Racing’s Clint Bowyer also sits at 0 for 15 while Team Penske’s Brad Keselowski sits at 0 for 11.

Busch has come close to winning it before, most recently in 2019 when he recorded a career-high second place finish behind teammate Denny Hamlin after leading 37 laps and holding the lead with two laps to go (before seven overtime laps were added).

But he looked poised to finally hoist the Harley J. Early trophy in 2020.

He led 14 laps over the course of two stints during the third and final stage of the 200-lap race around the four-turn, 2.5-mile (4.023-kilometer) superspeedway oval in Daytona Beach, Florida, and the Toyotas looked untouchable when they were hooked up with one another at the front of the field.

But he suddenly relinquished the lead and quickly fell back, further and further into the pack.

A few seconds later, he was not only out of the lead but out of the top 10, and smoke was coming out from underneath his #18 M&M’s Toyota.

At first, it was thought to be a tire rub. But he ended up being forced to retire from the race with an engine issue, and he was left officially scored in 34th place after a promising day ended for him with 20 laps to go (before nine overtime laps were added).

Busch has made it a recent habit to talk about “some other guy” when referencing his lack of a Daytona 500 win. He did it before the race, and he did it as he stood dejected in the garage after his race ended.

That “some other guy” is Dale Earnhardt.

Busch has taken a lot of heat for the way he has discussed the fact that “some other guy” took 20 tries to win the Daytona 500 for the first time, referencing the fact that he is still loved by the NASCAR community even though he simply couldn’t get the job done for almost two decades.

But this is really Busch’s way of trying to emulate the “Intimidator”, and he’s not wrong. If anything, it’s out of respect, as much as fans don’t want to hear it.

Earnhardt was a seven-time champion and 76-time race winner, and it still took him 20 tries to win the Daytona 500. For Busch, it has been 15 attempts, and he has said that he plans to be back for at least another 10 or 12 tries. Earnhardt ended up going 1 for 23.

He doesn’t want this lack of a Daytona 500 win to hang over his head, but he knows that all hope is not lost — just as all hope wasn’t lost for Earnhardt, who was 46 years old, a seven-time champion and a 70-time race winner when he finally took the checkered flag.

Busch is sitting here at 34, a two-time champion and a 56-time race winner.

That’s 12 years, five championships and 20 wins shy of Earnhardt’s numbers when he finally pulled it off.

Suffice it to say that Busch isn’t out of it quite yet, and referencing Earnhardt time and time again allows him to put things in perspective while also doing what he does best: ruffling some feathers.

But with every passing year, the pressure and intensity build, as they would for anybody, especially since a win in this race is literally the one and only thing lacking from his career and this has been the case for almost two full years now since he won the 2018 Coca-Cola 600.

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Yet another Daytona 500 resulted in yet another heartbreak for Kyle Busch, and the two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion who has basically already won everything else at NASCAR’s highest level will need to wait another year to have another chance to add that final crown jewel victory to his career.

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