Kyle Busch, No. 8 RCR Team Look to Build Momentum After Solid Outing at Dover

Finally, Kyle Busch and the No. 8 Richard Childress Racing team experienced a reprieve from the horrendous luck that has followed them for the majority of the opening 11 races of the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series campaign. Busch scored his first pole position of the year, and came home with a fourth-place finish after a hard-fought Wurth 400 at Dover Motor Speedway.

“It was a good day for the FICO Chevrolet and everyone on the No. 8 team," Busch said after climbing from his race car. "We had a good, solid points day."

Busch continued, "Overall, it was a good day and it felt good to have a ‘normal’ day with no issues. We would definitely love to get to the point where we have more races like today.”

While the finish marked Busch's first top-five finish since Atlanta Motor Speedway in February, the 38-year-old couldn't help but wonder what could have been. On what was supposed to be his final pit stop of the race, Busch's No. 8 team didn't quite get the fuel tank fully filled, which forced Busch to come back to pit road under a caution at Lap 322 to top off the fuel tank.

Busch was sitting third prior to the Lap 322 pit stop, and he feels like if he didn't have to come back down pit road that he could have potentially had a real shot at the race win.

"I felt like there, when we came off of pit road in third, if we could have maintained third, maybe kinda sorta, we might have had something for the front two, or at least been able to keep pace closer to the front two to see what happened towards the end of the race," Busch explained. "But that wasn't meant to be. We had to come back down, and had to restart eighth. Eighth to fourth in that final run right there. Decent day. Obviously, could have been one spot better, but still not a win."

Adding to Busch's frustrations in post-race was the fact that drivers blocking faster cars by disrupting the air on the front of their competitors cars was a common theme in Sunday's race at Dover.

In the closing laps, Busch says he was in position to pass Martin Truex Jr. for third place, when Truex made an aero block, and nearly ended Busch's race.

"I mean, at least you can move around, but the aero blocking is just so bad. It's so bad," Busch emphasized. "Everybody knows it, and uses it as a defense item. We lost a straightaway to the 19, that's what frustrated me the most. He was slower, he was slow, and just would not give me an inch to get by, and just about wrecked us off of [Turn] 2."

Fortunately, Busch was able to survive the manuever and was able to stop the bleeding. In the eight races between Busch's last top-five finish, and Sunday at Dover, the driver of the No. 8 RCR machine had scored six finishes outside of the top-15.

After a positive weekend at Dover, where the driver led 34 laps, Busch and his team will look to build momentum as we trudge toward the Summer months.

"Everything is week-to-week. You just gotta keep working an it week-to-week," Busch said. "It can be different every week, you know? I'm sure the No. 9 didn't think they were capable or were in a position that they were ready to get a win yet, and they got one a couple of weeks ago. So, just keep putting yourselves up front in position and doing what you need to do for that."

Photo Credit: Jim Fluharty, HHP for Chevy Racing