Kyle Busch’s sole priority at ROVAL is racing for the win
Kyle Busch is currently at the bottom of the elimination-bound racers in the R-12 and needs a solid race to secure a promotion.
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Kyle Busch (Via IMAGO)
Richard Childress Racing driver Kyle Busch pointed out that his main goal going into the fila race of the post-season Round of 12 is to secure the win. The two-time Cup series champion is searching for his fourth win of the 2023 season to avoid getting eliminated from the playoffs. It will be the fourth straight year without an R-4 entry.
Busch joined RCR in 2023 after ending his 15-year partnership with Joe Gibbs Racing. They had an impressive start to the season that saw him scoring the win in the second race. He made it to the last 16, surviving a small late-season slump. Busch has now found him in another slump, as he has scored just a single top-10 finish in the last five playoff races.
The P34 finishes in Texas and the P25 finish at Texas has put him in a tough spot, as racing for pints isn’t viable for him. He pointed out that he will not be racing for points at the track as he might endure the same fate as Joey Logano in 2022, as the Penske driver got caught in traffic after he raced for points in the first two stages.
“With stage cautions back in the equation, it changes what you have to do; you have to go for the win. If it wasn’t going to be stage cautions, you could probably go for points and see your strategy still play out normal. But with the cycle, the flip, the leapfrog that you get with the caution that comes out, we have to race for the win,” Busch said, as reported by RACER.
He added, “We saw last year [Joey] Logano ran for points the first stage, the second stage, and got back in 20th for the last stage and finished deep (18th). It doesn’t work, so it’s not going to be good enough for points for us.”
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Kyle Busch says that having the decisive race at ROVAL is good for him
ROVAL is deemed as one of the wild card races of the season, as often the mid-field team gives the big sides a run for their money. The RCR course gives teams like Front Raw Racing and Kaulig Racing an equal shot at a win as HMS and JGR.
Busch believes it is good it’s a road course race, as RCR has one of the best Next-Gen car packages for such races. If he can produce a solid race, he can make it out. He says if it was a track like Martinsville, things could’ve gone ugly for him.
“I think as much as the Roval is a wild card, it probably fits the best for us. It’s better than going to a Martinsville or something where we know that might be ugly. But the road course stuff has been really good, and we’ve tweaked on it and tuned on it a little bit. They had a really good package and baseline to start with, so hopefully it just works well for us,” Busch said.
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Justin P Joy
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