Harrison Burton’s win in the Coke Zero Sugar 400 on Saturday was special but a lot of people did not understand why Kyle Busch did not defend against him. Rowdy has not won a race this year and seems to be on his way out of the title picture already. In a superspeedway race in these Next-Gen cars, the lead driver usually blocks the ones behind trying to pass him. The two-time Cup Series champion did no such thing on the final lap at Daytona and NASCAR Veteran Kyle Petty was left confused by his racing.
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“Has he forgotten how to speedway race?” Petty asked in a recent NASCAR video. “As soon as Harrison Burton gets to the front, what does he do? He pulls down and he blocks Kyle Busch. Has Kyle Busch never watched Joey Logano or Brad Keselowski take control of a speedway race…Kyle Busch is still on the outside looking in and looking for a win in 2024 and that’s all on him.”
Had he gone for the block, he might have won the race and broken what has been a tough winless run. Now, he is in a must-win situation going into the final regular season race of the season. What makes the situation worse is that the event will be at the Darlington Raceway, one of the most difficult tracks to race on in NASCAR.
Rowdy has won at the track only once in his career and that too was in 2008. In the last five races at Darlington, he has finished inside the top 10 only once. The veteran will have to look for an almighty improvement if there is any chance of him making it into the playoffs.
Busch explains his side of the story
Petty’s view is not shared by the driver who said that there was nothing he could have done to stop Burton. Apart from wrecking him of course. Speaking to the media after the race, Rowdy did not seem too upset over not getting the race win. In a season that has been this tough, a P2 result can also ease a lot of nerves.
“Somehow the bottom lane got discombobulated, broke all of our momentum. The top lane just rolled. Once they got in front, with as little as energy as there was with the lack of cars that there were, it was hard to make anything happen from turn four to start/finish. Besides just flat-out wrecking him, there was nothing else I could do,” he explained in a post-race interview.
The focus is now on one thing only, winning at Darlington. It is a difficult job and in all probability, the #8 would not make it to Victory Lane on Sunday. But its driver has never been a quitter and he will give it his all on race day.
