NASCAR: Kyle Busch joins exclusive club with Kansas win
By Asher Fair
Kyle Busch secured his first win of the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series season on Sunday at Kansas Speedway, doing so on his 36th birthday.
In the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series season, it took Kyle Busch until the 34th of 36 races to finally find victory lane when he did so in late October at Texas Motor Speedway. This season, he was able to to it on his birthday, Sunday, May 2, at Kansas Speedway.
Busch led 20 of the 267 laps in Sunday afternoon’s Buschy McBusch Race 400 around the four-turn, 1.5-mile (2.414-kilometer) oval in Kansas City, Kansas and took the checkered flag by 0.336 seconds over Stewart-Haas Racing’s Kevin Harvick in second place.
It marked the second time in two attempts that the 36-year-old Las Vegas, Nevada native has won on his birthday.
His first birthday win came 12 years ago at Richmond Raceway when he turned 24 years old.
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By winning the 2021 season’s 11th race at Kansas Speedway, Busch became just the second driver to win multiple races on his birthday. The only other driver who had ever pulled off such a feat was Cale Yarborough.
Yarborough won on his birthday for the first time in 1977 at North Wilkesboro Speedway when he turned 38 years old, and he repeated this accomplishment six years later in 1983 at Atlanta Motor Speedway when he turned 44.
No driver has ever won on his birthday more than twice, and Busch’s opportunity to do so is naturally going to depend on future schedules. Fortunately for Busch, he doesn’t appear to be anywhere near retirement, so take a look at which day May 2 falls on over the next 10 years.
- 2022: Monday
- 2023: Tuesday
- 2024: Thursday
- 2025: Friday
- 2026: Saturday
- 2027: Sunday
- 2028: Tuesday
- 2029: Wednesday
- 2030: Thursday
- 2031: Friday
So barring rain postponements in 2022 or 2023, it appears that the earliest potential opportunity for Busch to become the first driver to win on his birthday on three occasions is slated for either 2026 or 2027, when he would turn 41 and 42.