The 2020 NASCAR Cup season did not meet those standards. After winning 27 races and his first two Cup championships between 2015-19, Busch won just one race last year and slumped to eighth in points, his worst points finish since 2014.
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Now, with a new crew chief and a whole new team at Joe Gibbs Racing, Kyle Busch, 35, is looking to bounce back in a big way and make up for lost time. Anything less than five wins this season will be a big disappointment.
Prior to last season, Kyle Busch averaged 5.4 wins per year over the previous five seasons, including matching his career-high with eight wins in 2018. He has won at least one Cup race in each of his 16 full-time seasons and has had just five seasons with only one win. After four of those single-win seasons, he bounced back and won big the following year, starting with his first eight-win season with Gibbs in 2008.
Also read: Kyle Busch on reaching 200 career victories: ‘All I do is win, win, win!’
Kyle Busch confident he will bounce back in 2021
Remember When: Kyle Busch appeared on WWE
Kyle Busch has a habit of bouncing back after lean seasons.
This, though, might be Busch’s greatest challenge. He will enter 2021 with a new crew chief after Adam Stevens, who led him to his two championships, moved to Gibbs’ No. 20 team to work with new driver Christopher Bell. Busch will work with Ben Beshore, his former team engineer and Xfinity Series crew chief.
Most of Kyle Busch’s crew from last season followed Stevens to Bell’s No. 20 car, while the No. 20 crew that worked with Erik Jones last year moved to Busch’s No. 18. The drastic moves have left Busch feeling like he has moved to an entirely new team, which, in a sense, he has.
Why did Kyle Busch struggle in 2020?
Kyle Busch had a wildly inconsistent season last year, scoring just 14 top-five finishes, his lowest total since 2014. He didn’t win until the 34th race of the season at Texas Motor Speedway. He attributes his struggles to there being no practice and qualifying during a strange season disrupted by COVID-19. Because of the virus, NASCAR had to take six weeks off and scrapped all practice and qualifying to reduce time at the track and contact in the garage area.
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Kyle Busch is one of the best drivers in the garage at making quick adjustments to his car and dialing it in for race day. But with no practice, he and other drivers had to rely on race simulators in the shop to figure out the right setup for each track. That process threw Busch and his team for a loop.
Having Kyle Busch and his 57 career wins worth of experience behind the wheel is the best simulator a team can have.
How Kyle Busch finally won in 2020
The team hit on something, however, with its victory at Texas. Busch said his team implemented a “philosophy shift” late in the season and built a brand-new car for Texas using a method it had not employed before. It worked, with Kyle Busch leading 90 laps and holding off teammate Martin Truex Jr. for the win.
The last time Kyle Busch switched crew chiefs, he bounced back the following season to win five races and his first championship. Three years later, he won eight races, and then bagged his second championship in 2019.
He hopes his latest change launches another championship run.
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