Kyle Busch goes to Chicago this Sunday hoping to break the worst winless streak of his career and fix a spot in the 2024 playoffs. He finished last year’s race in the Windy City’s streets in fifth place and will be hoping for a similar if not better performance this time. Talking to the press ahead of the weekend he expressed his views about adding more street courses to the NASCAR schedule.
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The two-time champion is all up for more contests in the public streets being the Rowdy that he is. However, he would like to see the field head somewhere that it hasn’t been before. He said, “If we’re going to do it, we should go to an area that we’re not currently racing in. I wouldn’t change racing at Las Vegas Motor Speedway to run on the streets of Las Vegas. Let’s go somewhere different.”
Last year’s race in the 2.2-mile, 12-turn Chicago street circuit was a rainy affair. When the race’s start was delayed, Busch had thought the entire fixture would be postponed. But then the standing water was removed and NASCAR decided to go ahead as planned. The wetness made things much more challenging for the field on top of the narrow streets.
Busch said of the day, “We struggled a little bit there early in the race, but we were able to turn it around. Our strategy worked really well, some breaks fell our way, and we were able to score a top-five.” He is currently in a tricky need-to-win spot going back. Just seven more races are left in the regular season and qualifying on points has moved a bit too far away from his reach.
Kyle Busch’s crew chief is not sure of a positive result at Chicago
Talking to SiriusXM NASCAR Radio recently, Busch’s crew chief Randall Burnett acknowledged that it was way too hard now to qualify on points. The driver sits 104 points below the elimination line with multiple drivers above him. However, there’s a little light at the end of the tunnel via the upcoming race venues. Busch has already won races in most of them and will have the edge of experience.
As far as Chicago itself goes, even Burnett is not sure of a positive result there. He said, “I think we’ve got some good tracks coming up. Chicago is going to be a crapshoot for sure. You never know what you’re going to get there.” Hopefully, the #8 Richard Childress Racing team will be able to catch a break this weekend and get back on the victory lane.
