Quick, who’s going to win Sunday’s Food City 500 (3:30 pm ET/FOX/PRN) at the Bristol (Tenn) Motor Speedway? I’ll give you either Kyle Busch AND his brother Kurt or the other 38 starters. Which option do you want?
If I had a choice, give me the Busch‘s.
Darrell Waltrip tops the all-time wins list at Bristol with 12. Dale Earnhardt, Rusty Wallace and Cale Yarborough trail with nine wins apiece. But the last name that appears the most often on the Bristol Motor Speedway wins list is “Busch.”
Kyle Busch (eight wins) and his older brother Kurt (six wins) have combined for 14 wins at Bristol and there’s no reason to think that number couldn’t grow this Sunday in the Food City presents the SUPERMARKET HEROES 500.
Kyle’s mark leads active drivers in wins, while Kurt is second in that group. The next closest among drivers on Sunday’s entry list is Matt Kenseth’s four wins, while Denny Hamlin, Kevin Harvick, Jimmie Johnson, Brad Keselowski, and Joey Logano have two apiece.
And the Busch brothers have combined to win four of the last five races at the half-mile track. Kyle is the most recent Busch to post a win, capturing the victory in the spring race a year ago. Kurt preceded him the fall before.
Overall in 38 starts, Kurt has the six wins, 12 top fives, 20 top 10s and has led 1,095 laps at Bristol. Kyle has the eight wins as part of 12 top fives, 17 top 10s and led 2,334 laps in 29 starts.
Combined, they’ve won four of the last five on the .533-mile concrete oval. Kyle, beat Kurt in a 1-2 finish last spring for his third win in the last five races there. Kurt, won the night race the August prior. The elder Busch has three top five finishes in his last five attempts to go along with five top seven results in the last six races on the season as well.
The younger Busch has three top three finishes and four top fives in his last six starts on the year too. He’s been needing a spark though and Bristol could be it. His crew chief Adam Stevens thinks Sunday’s race could be the place he gets his swagger back.
“What makes Kyle (Busch) good at Bristol doesn’t change,” Stevens said on Friday. “He’s just so good at adapting what he’s doing behind the wheel to suit how the track is changing. Hopefully he’ll get to showcase more of that this weekend.
“It’s the track and the nuances of the track and how that changes and the fact that it changes is what makes KB shine there. He can make time on the bottom, in the PJ1, he can make time around the top when that’s the place to be and he’s not scared to move around and really is exceptional at getting through the lapped traffic as well.
“If you had to circle a place to get your mojo back, this would probably be it.”
Stevens notes that this season hasn’t been a strong start for them. He mentioned that they’re not as competitive as he’d hope they’d been.
“We’ve managed to get a couple good finishes in there, managed to get a couple poor finishes – the poor finishes were probably more poor than what they needed to be because of mistakes or circumstances we fell into during the race.”
Now, they can get back to somewhat of a normal schedule post Bristol. Four of the five races scheduled in this phase are on Sunday’s which comes after two weeknight races the last couple of weeks.
“There’s quite a few of my crew guys who have been worn out here and spread pretty thin,” Stevens said. “They could really use a day or two off for sure, and they’re going to get that early in the week.
“We have a race in Atlanta with no practice, so the prep is down, but no midweek race … will make it a lot more palatable next week. Next week will probably be a week to get caught back up and assess where we’re at and maybe do a little bit more leg work on some of the future races so we can be a little bit more ahead. For certain there’s a large group of guys who need a day off.”
After all look at their competition. Denny Hamlin won last years night race but is without his car chief, crew chief and engineer. Martin Truex Jr has one top 10 in his last 15 Bristol starts. Kevin Harvick has one top five in his last six Bristol tries. Brad Keselowski has one top five in his last eight. Chase Elliott has two top fives in eight tries.
See why I’m taking Busch squared now?
