AUSTIN, Texas. — Kyle Busch was in position to snap the longest winless drought of his 21-year Cup Series career. The two-time Cup Series champion was doing everything he could to hold off a hard-charging Christopher Bell during Sunday‘s EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix at Circuit of The Americas.
It wasn‘t enough.
Busch led six times for a race-high 42 laps, but Bell was breathing down his neck in the waning laps. Randall Burnett, crew chief of the No. 8 Chevrolet, called Busch to pit road for the final time on Lap 69. Joe Gibbs Racing crew chief Adam Stevens played the long game with Christopher Bell, leaving the No. 20 Toyota on the track for two additional circuits.
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Upon exiting the pits, Busch gapped Bell by over six seconds, gaining some four seconds of coveted track time with the fresher rubber. The No. 20 car was steadily making progress on the No. 8 car, with Daytona 500 champion William Byron in between the two drivers. The game-changing moment of the race came on Lap 78, when Denny Hamlin locked up his tires and plowed into Austin Dillon. The No. 3 car was stuck in the gravel pit, bringing out a caution flag.
“We were in a tough spot being the leader because the [No.] 20 can gauge off, ‘OK, he‘s going to pit, I can go a couple extra laps, put better tires on. Yeah, I‘m giving up some time, but I‘m going to be running faster,‘” Burnett told NASCAR.com “When the caution comes out, it gives him a free pass to erase a four- or five-second gap for no penalty on his tires.
“Maybe I should have stayed out longer, but if I stayed out longer, I come out behind [Byron] and then I burn my stuff up to pass him. It‘s one of those deals where you‘re kind of a sitting duck. Definitely didn‘t need that caution. That hurt our chances.”
Without the caution, Burnett believes Bell would have run down Busch. In a hypothetical situation, that would have slowed the pace of the No. 20 car when Bell caught Busch, rather than having fresher tires immediately.
Busch was wheeling his No. 8 machine for all it was worth. He used a defensive line to slow Bell‘s closing rate. Bell had a strong run off Turn 20 with less than 10 laps remaining and aborted on the corner exit coming off Turn 1. Otherwise, he would have taken out Busch.
“I’m sure everyone saw it, getting into [Turn] 1, I’m like, ‘Alright, I got him now, I got him,‘” Bell said. “I drove in there and locked the rears up, and I’m sliding. I had to go right to try and miss him. Thankfully, I did miss him.”
Calm, cool and collected, Bell used the fresher tires to his advantage, passing Busch for the lead with six laps remaining. Bell held Byron and a closing Tyler Reddick for his second straight win.
Contact with Bell hindered Busch‘s performance. He sank to fifth when the checkered flag waved, as Chase Elliott also got around him on the final lap.
“[Bell] was faster than me and was able to do a good job of biding his time and waiting for me to make a couple of mistakes in a row,” Busch said. “Once I made two mistakes in a row, then it was over.
“I was making it incredibly difficult on him and certainly there were some times where he could have done it again, but he did a better job of that. At that point, he had better tires; I don‘t know that he had a better race car. Just was a tick faster than I was.”
Without the victory, Busch‘s winless streak is now at 60 races, dating back to June 2023 at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway. Burnett boils this loss down to circumstances, and the duo is pleased with rebounding from a poor start to the weekend on Saturday.
“Good piece. I was really scared when we unloaded; we were not where we wanted to be,” Busch said. “The guys made really good adjustments to the race car, got it a lot better and put it where we needed it to be to go out there and have a contending car for the race today.”
With a seventh-place finish last weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway, it‘s the first time Busch has pieced together consecutive top 10s since last September, when he had four in a row between Michigan International Speedway and Atlanta.
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