NASCAR: Commentator’s curse on display at Darlington?

Just as Kyle Busch was supposedly about to achieve a personal milestone, he had a flat tire and spun out in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race.

Joe Gibbs Racing’s Kyle Busch, who won last Sunday’s race at Kansas Speedway to secure his first victory of the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series season, entered this past Sunday’s race at Darlington Raceway having led 17,981 laps throughout his Cup Series career.

On lap 14 of the 293-lap race around the four-turn, 1.366-mile (2.198-kilometer) egg-shaped oval in Darlington, South Carolina, Busch took the lead from Stewart-Haas Racing’s Kevin Harvick, who had taken the lead from Team Penske’s Brad Keselowski on lap five.

Joe Gibbs Racing’s Martin Truex Jr. then worked his way up to second place behind Busch. With Busch in the lead on lap 22, Fox announcer Mike Joy commented that he was about to achieve a personal milestone.

Busch was about to lead his 18,000th lap of Cup Series competition.

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Lo and behold, a couple seconds later, Busch had a tire go down and spun out in turn four, bringing out the race’s first caution flag period and handing the lead to Truex. Busch’s career laps led total had stalled at 17,989.

And he still hasn’t hit that career milestone of 18,000. Despite the fact that he was able to recover quite nicely and actually finished the second stage in second place and the race in third, he only led one more lap of the race to get it to 17,990, that being lap 188 during a stage break pit sequence.

From that point forward, the race’s only leader was Truex. He led 143 of the race’s final 144 laps, including the last 105 after Busch led lap 188.

So when will Busch achieve that milestone that he was “about to achieve” just 11 laps after spinning out on lap 22?

Through 12 races this season, he has only led 43 laps. After leading at least 1,379 laps in four consecutive seasons entering the 2020 season, he led just 516 laps last season, and while he does have a win this year, those struggles have continued into 2021. Prior to his victory, he had led a total of only 14 laps in three of the 10 races that had been contested.

Busch sits in 10th place in the point standings and eighth in the playoff picture through 12 of the 26 regular season races on the schedule ahead of the four-round, 10-race playoffs. The 13th race on the calendar is the Drydene 400, which is scheduled to take place on Sunday, May 16. This race is set to be broadcast live on Fox Sports 1 from Dover International Speedway beginning at 2:00 p.m. ET.