Before the 2023 season got underway, not many would’ve imagined Kyle Busch and William Byron to be the two main protagonists of the season. Especially considering the fact that Busch was coming off a rather disappointing last season at JGR and Byron’s teammates were generally counted as favorites over the young driver.
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But that’s where we are now, almost halfway into the season. William Byron and Kyle Busch are only separated by 36 points and both, until the recent race in Atlanta, had 3 wins each. Of course, Byron ended up winning the rain-shortened Quaker State 400 to get a foothold over Busch in terms of wins and points this year as currently, Byron has 4 wins over Busch’s 3, and he has 628 points over Busch’s 592.
Perhaps this is what prompted the #8 driver to acknowledge their shortcomings after the race.
Kyle Busch claims they need to “clean up” their work as a team
Speaking in a post-race interview after Atlanta where he finished in the 5th position, Kyle Busch opened up on the mistakes they’re making as a team as well as touching upon their race in general. “We for sure see the mistakes that we’re making. We need to get better on all of that, we all need to clean up our work,” Busch said.
As for his evening in Atlanta, Busch added, “I was so close on a couple of times on breaking through into the top 10/ top 8 in order to get that track position, to finally get out of that swarm, out of that nest, but I’d get chucked to the bottom and I’d get sucked back or I’d get put up in the fence with the Noah Gragson thing.”
“So just crazy things just kept happening, where we were back in the traffic but that was our good fortune where we were back there, we didn’t have track position; we knew to just keep fueling the car as much as we could and when the field came to a caution or a flip, an opportunity to flip, take it and see what happens, especially with the weather moving in and seeing the race will be shorter.”
#NASCAR … Kyle Busch finished fifth. He talks about the ups and downs of his race. pic.twitter.com/SGCE3YSM9P
— Dustin Long (@dustinlong) July 10, 2023
Busch thought he could’ve done better than a 5th place finish in Atlanta
Further opening up about the race in Atlanta, Busch claimed the whole thing was “all about momentum.” He described how, if a driver broke the momentum, it knocked them back or slowed them down leading to other drivers taking advantage of that.
“Tonight’s race was all about minimizing mistakes and minimizing the number of cars that get by you while you’re trying to make moves. It was definitely a different game,” Busch said as per NBC Sports. The 2x Cup champion added he was “really happy” with his #8 Camaro, which they adjusted on every pit stop.
Having said that, Busch wished they could’ve continued further as they were capable of “more than a fifth-place finish.”
