Will Kyle Busch go winless this year?
Kyle Busch holds the record for the most conseutive seasons with at least one win, winning in 19 straight seasons and currently attempting to make it 20. Though there have been some close calls in recent years (2020, 2022), Kyle Busch has never gone winless during his entire time in the Cup Series. However, we're almost halfway through the 2024 season and RCR has shown only very occasional signs of life. An unprecedented winless Kyle Busch season is becoming a real possibility.
Looking at the remainder of the schedule, there are still some decent opportunities for him:
- RCR's road course program still seems solid. In 2023, there were six road courses and KB had Top 5's at four of them. Excluding a DNF at Indy, he had an average finish of 5.2 on road courses and was running in the top 5 at COTA this year before getting spun. Because of this, I'd argue that KB should be considered a factor for the win at each of the remaining four road course this year (4).
- KB showed serious speed at Bristol in the Spring and lead laps early before having car issues. Between that and the historic success he has had at Bristol, I think the Bristol Night Race can also be counted among KB's best opportunties for a win in 2024 (5). All other short tracks are pretty much out of the question, though.
- Superspeedways are the great equalizer and KB has shown good speed at all of them this year, albeit not always with the finishes he wanted. Superspeedways can be kind of crapshoots, but I'm still gonna throw the Fall races at Daytona (6), Atlanta (7), and Talladega (8) in the mix as well.
That's 8 of the remaining 21 races where I estimate that KB has his best chances at victory. He could still potentially win on one of the remaining intermediates, but of the tracks still ahead of us in 2024, he hasn't had a lot of success in the last few years and especially hasn't at RCR.
What do y'all think? Do you think Kyle Busch is going to get his 20 year streak or do you think he's going to go winless for the first time in his Cup career? If you think he pulls it off, where do you think that win is most likely to come from?