NASCAR: Here’s when Kyle Busch could call it quits
By Asher Fair
Kyle Busch’s 2021 NASCAR Xfinity Series schedule is set. As a result, he now knows where he could potentially reach win number 100 and call it quits.
Kyle Busch has long said that once he reaches 100 career NASCAR Xfinity Series wins, he will be done competing at stock car racing’s second highest level.
He competed in five races last year; full-time Cup Series drivers who have five or more seasons of full-time experience in the Cup Series are only allowed to compete in five races per year, at most.
He won twice, although his second win was stripped from him after his car failed post-race inspection. As a result, he is set to enter the 2021 season with 97 wins, and he is again set to compete in five races.
This means that the 2021 season could be his last in the Xfinity Series.
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Joe Gibbs Racing have confirmed the 35-year-old Las Vegas, Nevada native’s five-race schedule behind the wheel of the #54 Toyota for the upcoming 33-race season.
Busch is set to compete in the races at Circuit of the Americas (Saturday, May 22), Texas Motor Speedway (Saturday, June 12), Nashville Superspeedway (Saturday, June 19), Road America (Saturday, July 3) and Atlanta Motor Speedway (Saturday, July 10).
This means that he could potentially hit win number 100 as early as Saturday, June 12 at Texas Motor Speedway.
Of course, it’s not like Busch would bail on his final two scheduled starts at Nashville Superspeedway and Road America if he were to win his first three races at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Circuit of the Americas and Texas Motor Speedway, or even on just his final scheduled start if he wins three of the first four.
We’d simply know at that time that the 2021 season would be his last.
But the critics shouldn’t get their hopes up. As Busch has said before, “I would be there by now and I would have been out of it by now but apparently NASCAR and the fans love me there so much they keep make limitations on keeping me there.”
With him only allowed to compete in five races, it’s not statistically likely that he gets it done in 2021.
Three wins in five races (60%) doesn’t seem like whole lot for Busch at a level other than the Cup Series. But there are a few things to consider first.
Busch last won three races in an Xfinity Series season in 2019, when he won four times. But in the 2019 season, full-time Cup Series drivers who had five or more seasons of full-time experience in the Cup Series were permitted to compete in as many as seven races, not five. So Busch naturally competed in seven races.
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In 18 career Xfinity Series seasons, Busch’s highest win percentage is 58.8% (10 wins in 17 starts in 2016). He has never ended a season with a 60% win percentage, so with all things considered, it’s unlikely that he will end the 2021 season with enough wins to call it a career.