When the season started, Kurt Busch stood atop the NASCAR world by stretching his fuel and winning the 59th running of the Daytona 500.
Running second behind Kyle Larson on the final lap, he made his move jumping to the high side rounding Turn 1, just as Larson’s fuel cell ran dry, to assume the lead and drove on to take the checkered flag.
He and his team followed the tradition observed by the teams that win Lord Stanley’s Cup in the National Hockey League and took the Harley J. Earl trophy on a “world tour.”
“When Earl and I went out on a boat ride on Lake Norman it was in May,” Busch said. “He looked at me and said, ‘Hey man, I’m tired. I want to hang out with the other trophies in the trophy room.’ When he was hanging out with the crew guys they didn’t do a lot of things on social media with him that should have been done.”
But as happens every year, the end of Speedweeks means the weekly grind of the season truly starts. And his season, in a nutshell, has been hit or miss.
He followed up his win with a seventh at Atlanta Motor Speedway, but went four straight races with finishes no better than 24th, including getting caught in a multi-car wreck at Martinsville Speedway.
This poor run took him from first in points to 19th.
Busch ended his anemic run with a 10th at Texas Motor Speedway and his season started to stabilize, with poor finishes coming every other race.
That’s not even an exaggeration. Since Texas, he’s finished 25th at Bristol, eighth at Richmond, sixth at Talladega, 19th at Kansas, sixth at Charlotte, 37th at Dover (after getting loose and collecting Brad Keselowski early in the race), fourth at Pocono, 12th at Michigan and seventh at Sonoma.
Since his 10th-place at Texas, he’s moved from 19th to 14th in points.
Meeting with the media in the Daytona International Speedway deadline room, Busch said while winning the Daytona 500 and hoisting the Harley Earl trophy “was a special moment and the highlight of my career,” it’s not something to rest on.
“To start off winning the biggest stock car race in the world and to have the chance to hoist up the Harley J. Earl trophy, that was a special moment and the highlight of my career. That isn’t something to rest on,” Busch said. “I would say a few weeks after that, we were slightly hungover, not necessarily literally. I just seemed like a fog. The energy I get sent on a media tour. Tony Gibson lives here in the shadows of Daytona International Speedway. All of us were so excited. We’re ordering rings, flags. We’re taking the Harley J. Earl trophy to Ford’s headquarters, Monster’s headquarters, Haas’ headquarter…there was a lot going on. Once we settled in and learned the balance of our Ford and how things were changing here and there, quite honestly, I think we’ve done great. In half the races this year we have a top-10 finish. Harvick won last week on a road course. For us to win at a superspeedway shows the versatility that Stewart-Haas has. We have to focus on the mile-and-a-halves and making sure we are best prepared for when the playoffs start”
