NASCAR Preview: Can Kyle Busch End 16-Year Losing Streak at Darlington?

After an extremely disappointing start to the 2024 season, it seems that Kyle Busch is finally gathering momentum. The RCR driver sits 12th in the regular season standings on the back of consecutive top-10 finishes at Dover and Kansas and is confident this improvement can finally translate into wins. The Cup Series heads to Darlington this week, a track where Busch last collected a victory all the way back in 2008.

In his first year at Joe Gibbs Racing at the time, the win made Kyle Busch the youngest winner at Darlington, a feat he holds to this day. In his 24 appearances at the track, the #8 driver has six top-5 and 14 top-10 finishes, including finishing as the runner-up twice. Like Chase Elliott, Busch expressed the difficulty that Darlington poses for the drivers, part of why it is known as the track that is ‘too tough to tame’.

“I think we’ve always kind of had trouble passing there to begin with, because the track is so narrow and it’s really, really tough to pass regardless,” said the driver, who does not see any difference in how the Next Gen car handles the track compared to its predecessor.

Making his fifth and final Truck appearance of the season on Friday, Busch crashed into the wall on lap two and ended his race, failing to add to his two Truck victories from earlier this season.

In his first year with RCR last season, Busch had two wins at this point of the season and consistently ran at the top of the field. The former JGR driver fell off at the end of the season, leading to an early exit from the playoffs. That poor form continued into 2024, with three finishes outside the top 20 in the first five races of the season.

Now that he finally has some momentum, Busch will certainly hope it leads to a win that books his place in the playoffs as early as possible.