No other race on the NASCAR Cup schedule is as unpredictable as the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. That’s a big statement, especially when you consider racing at other unpredictable places like Talladega or Daytona.
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That’s why Kyle Busch, who will be making his 20th career start in the 600 on Sunday, isn’t worried about his qualifying pace. With the 600 being the longest race of the year, it’s not a matter of being the fastest driver on the 1.5-mile quad-oval, it’s a matter of timing, endurance, pacing yourself and avoiding wrecks.
Sounds kinda like ‘Dega and Daytona, doesn’t it? But nevertheless, Busch isn’t fretting or even worried about qualifying well for the 600. Wherever he starts, it won’t be where he finishes.
“The Coke 600 is the Coke 600, it’s the longest race of the year,” Busch said. “It’s a demanding race. You work as hard as you can on yourself with your training and what not to be able to withstand the elements for that race.”
But no matter where a driver qualifies, be it high, low or in the middle, it simply doesn’t make a difference.
“No, it doesn’t,” Busch concurred. “It’s a longer race so you have more time from sunlight to nighttime, and typically you don’t really worry about how your car is until you get to the nighttime because that’s when the money’s paid, so you want to be fast at that time of the day.”
Busch has one win in his previous 19 starts in the 600, starting from the pole and winning the 2018 edition. In the six editions of the 600 since that win in ’18, Busch has really come into his own, with his finishes from 2019 through 2024 being, in order: 3rd, 4th, 3rd, 2nd, 6th and 15th in last year’s rain-shortened event.
Admittedly, Busch, now in his third season of driving the No. 8 Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing, has had a very rough first 12 races of the current season. He’s managed just one top-five and four top-10s in that period.
Half of his 12 starts have ended with finishes of 20th or lower, including his last three races, where he’s finished 27th (Talladega), 20th (Texas) and 21st (Kansas).
But perhaps the most uncharacteristic part of things for Busch overall is he has not won a Cup race since 2023, meaning he hasn’t visited victory lane in his last 69 Cup starts.
He certainly hasn’t forgotten how to drive or win. After all, this is the same Kyle Busch who is the winningest driver in NASCAR history, with 63 Cup wins, 102 Xfinity wins and 67 Truck wins, making for a total of 232 total wins.
While his recent results don’t show it, Busch does admit his car is starting to come around and is gaining more speed. That’s why a race like the Coca-Cola 600 could definitely play in his favor.
“It’s a lot of little things,” Busch said. “That’s what you’re dealing with in this day and age. There are so many little details that you can find. If you find 100 small, tiny details, then that’s all going to add up.
“The guys at the shop have been doing a good job working on all of that, whether it’s car build or little things in the setups.”
Does anybody really know what time it is?
In addition to the overall length of the Coca-Cola 600, the other major problem for all drivers — including Busch — is, as he said, Sunday’s transition from starting in the daylight and finishing late in the evening.
Sunlight in the afternoon, the approaching of dusk and then racing under the lights requires a significant change of strategy literally from hour to hour as the available light shifts from natural to man-made.
And there’s one other thing to keep in mind: weather. Last year’s race finished 151 laps less than the originally scheduled 400 laps due to rain.
But the switch from daylight to nighttime could definitely work to Busch’s advance. And if it does, don’t be surprised if he winds up snapping that 69-race winless streak Sunday night, especially with the way he’s performed of late, regardless of the ultimate finishes he’s had.
Could a win be right around the corner for Busch, who turned 40 years old earlier this month and would love to give himself a belated birthday present that would put him into the Cup playoffs?
“Texas Motor Speedway was good, (but) I didn’t feel that good about Kansas Speedway,” he said. “I got up to 11th at Kansas and then kind of stalled out.
“I feel like if you could have taken me and placed me in fifth, then I probably could have ran in fifth. But I couldn’t get myself there on my own. Texas, though, I felt like I drove my way up to the front the whole time.”
The 600 is a race of survival, not speed — and that’s exactly why it could be Kyle Busch’s best shot at breaking his drought. We’ll see what happens Sunday night.
