Kyle Busch wins Wurth 400 pole award at Dover Motor Speedway
Finally good news for Richard Childress Racing. Kyle Busch was the best in qualifying and took home the pole award, the 34th of his career. This is the first pole award in the NASCAR Cup Series since World Wide Technology Raceway a year ago.
Speaking of that pole award, Kyle Busch won that race in 2023 after being the best in qualifying. Last season at Dover, Busch started P1 but there was no qualifying session so it was decided on the metric NASCAR sets.
After struggling so much this season, a pole award, and possibly a win, is just what this No. 8 team needs to get back on the right track.
Kyle Busch was even more impressive in the fact that he went first in the final round. Usually, you don’t want to be that first car out in either round. However, nine other drivers went up and nine drivers failed to best Busch.
The Ford camp was strong in qualifying. Ryan Blaney is going to start on the outside of the front row. However, it was the performances of Noah Gragson, Michael McDowell, and Chase Briscoe that impressed me.
The top-10 for Sunday’s Wurth 400 are: Busch, Blaney, William Byron, Tyler Reddick, Gragson, Denny Hamlin, Briscoe, McDowell, Alex Bowman, and AJ Allmendinger.
Kyle Busch needs a good weekend at Dover
So far Kyle Busch has had one of the worst starts to a season as he has ever had. Even in 2020 when he didn’t win a race until Texas in the playoffs, Busch was racking up top-5 finishes. Truly, you have to go back to Busch’ rookie and sophomore years with Hendrick to find a worst start to the year.
No wins, only a single top-5, two top-10s and a lot of frustration. Busch ahs four finishes of P22 or worse. The thing is, he isn’t getting DNFs, he’s just not running well. There has been a lack of true speed in his car the last two months.
However, we have started to see that change. This is the second week in a row that Busch has qualified in the top-5. He also had some decent speed going back to Martinsville. Of course, he didn’t qualify at Texas after wrecking in practice that week.
However, it might be a sign of things changing for the better. Track position is such a hard thing to overcome in the Next Gen car and one easy way to get track position is to qualify well.
Kyle Busch will be out in the wind when the Wurth 400 starts on Sunday. Let’s see if he can drive that No. 8 Chevy Camaro to a win and remind everyone that Rowdy can still get Rowdy.