AUSTIN, Texas — No one penciled Kyle Busch as a pre-race favorite for Circuit of the Americas.
He went winless and suffered the worst year of his NASCAR Cup Series career in 2024, and with a NASCAR Cup Series field bursting at the seams with road racing talent, it looked like odds favorite Shane van Gisbergen, former COTA winners Tyler Reddick and William Byron among others would be the drivers to beat.
And yet, for nearly half the race, Busch was outrunning them all.
“Great piece,” Busch said. “I was really scared when we unloaded. We were not where we wanted to be, but the guys made really, really good adjustments to the race car and got it a lot better, put it where we needed it to be to go out there and have a contending car for the race today.”
With 20 laps to go, Busch was out front by more than two seconds over second-place Byron and four seconds over third-place Christopher Bell. As the laps ticked down one-by-one, it looked like Sunday (March 2) would be the shining moment where Busch broke out of his slump with career win no. 64.
That all changed when a crash between Denny Hamlin and Austin Dillon in turn 6A saw the latter get stuck in the gravel with 18 to go to bring out a caution. Busch was still in a good spot, but his huge lead was gone, and he now had to hold off a plethora of hungry drivers on slightly older tires.
“That caution definitely hurt us,” Busch explained. “That was not what we needed. Hated that we got that but knew it was going to be a battle like it was there to end.”
Busch played defense for as long as he could against Bell — who had two-lap fresher tires — but the No. 8 car started slipping in the corners while Busch tried to protect the lead. Bell capitalized by making the pass for the lead with six to go, and he held off the charge from Byron and Reddick to win for the second straight week.
Bell and Busch traded paint a lap before the pass was made, and the No. 8 car quickly faded from the picture after losing the lead. Busch nursed it home to a fifth-place finish, well behind the top three of Bell, Byron and Reddick.
“I feel like I either bent a control arm or bent a toe link or something like that, so the contact definitely changed the race car and ruined the race car,” Busch said. “I thought you were supposed to be able to bang wheels and race these things side-by-side, but not the case.”
THERE'S CONTACT! pic.twitter.com/gAn6UmpxkJ
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) March 2, 2025
Despite the contact, Busch commended Bell for how he raced in their battle for the top spot.
“He was very gracious and very clean for how I was and what I was doing,” Busch said. “I was cutting him off and blocking and doing all the stupid stuff that you need to do to try to protect the lead, but he was much faster than me and was able to just do a good job of biding his time and waiting for me to make a couple of mistakes in a row.
“Once I made two mistakes in a row, then it was over.”
Busch led nearly half the race, pacing the field for 42 of the race’s 95 laps. And while he won’t be leaving the Lone Star State with a trophy, he and the No. 8 team showed that they still have what it takes to dominate on any given weekend and that their 2024 slumber is now in the rearview mirror.
Stephen Stumpf is the NASCAR Content Director for Frontstretch and is a three-year veteran of the site. His weekly column is “Stat Sheet,” and he formerly wrote "4 Burning Questions" for three years. He also writes commentaries, contributes to podcasts, edits articles and is frequently at the track for on-site coverage.
Find Stephen on Twitter @stephen_stumpf