1 week agoKyle Busch of Richard Childress Racing will start 15th for this week's Phoenix Raceway Cup event, the Shriners Children's 500. This will be Busch's highest starting position at a race at the Arizona track since 2023. In 39 starts at Phoenix, Busch has three wins and 26 top-10 finishes. The No. 8 Chevrolet driver last scored a top-10 at Phoenix in the March 2023 race but also finished with positive Place Differential in his last two races at the site. In practice, Busch ranked second in overall lap averages while ranking among the top 20 fastest in almost all categories. With Phoenix overall being a favorable track for Busch and his solid practice speeds, Busch can be utilized in any DFS format, but his upside, which is average overall, makes him more favored as a tournament play than a cash game play.
--Sean Engel - RotoBallerSource: DriverAverages.com
2 weeks agoKyle Busch had one of his strongest road course performances in his Cup career at Circuit of the Americas on Sunday by finishing fifth and leading 43 laps. Beginning the race from the eighth position, Busch held tough throughout the entire race, scoring stage points in the first and second stages by placing fourth in both. The No. 8 Chevrolet driver became dominant during the race's final stage, taking the lead at several points, but lap 74 began his longest period of being the leader. Even through a caution for incident, Busch would not surrender the lead until five laps to go, when Christopher Bell passed him cleanly in turn one. In the closing laps, William Byron, Tyler Reddick, and Chase Elliott all passed Busch, relegating him to a finish of fifth. This finish would be the third consecutive top-10 finish for Busch at COTA as well as the fourth overall in his Cup career.
--Sean Engel - RotoBallerSource: NASCAR.com
2 weeks agoSince switching to Richard Childress Racing, Kyle Busch has almost entirely lost any semblance of the surefire consistency he used to have. However, road courses seem to have been an exception as he had four top fives on road and street courses in 2023 and he still had two top tens on those tracks last year. It's hard to imagine Busch will run as badly as last year again and he has been strong at Austin in the past with three top tens including a 2nd place finish in 2023, where he qualified 9th. If he regresses to his usual mean, he should probably run closer to his 2023 performance, but the field has certainly gotten a lot deeper with Shane van Gisbergen, Carson Hocevar, and Connor Zilisch. Expect him to run in the top ten but never fight for the lead. He qualified too well for serious DFS consideration.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
3 weeks agoRichard Childress Racing's Kyle Busch ended Sunday's Ambetter Health 400 at Atlanta Motor Speedway in the seventh position. The No. 8 Chevrolet driver would fail to score stage points for the day as he ended the first stage in 12th position and the second stage in 19th. In the final stage, Busch took advantage of pit strategy and adjustments made on his car by his team throughout the day and took the lead around lap 193, leading his first laps of the day. Busch exchanged the lead with several drivers until he lost it to Ryan Blaney on lap 224. Ultimately, Busch would never get back to the lead from this point but managed to avoid multiple crashes and incidents to walk away with the fifth top-10 finish of his Cup career at Atlanta since the track was reconfigured in 2022.
--Sean Engel - RotoBallerSource: NASCAR.com
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