Kyle Busch Chose to Race the Right Way on Final Lap at Daytona
In an alternate universe, Kyle Busch is currently locked into the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs for doing whatever it took to win with his back against the wall in the Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway. Chances are, in that other universe Harrison Burton ended up turned on the last lap. However, in our current timeline, Busch came bitterly close to picking up his first win of the season, but ultimately gracefully accepted a runner-up finish as Burton registered his first career win.
Busch, who has made a career of being ruthless on the track, didn't cross over the line while charging toward the finish line in an overtime finish despite desperately needing a win. The 39-year-old Busch attempted to knife around Burton, 23, coming off of Turn 4 on the final lap. He darted high, which Burton moved to avoid, he then cut his wheel to the low side, but Burton was prepared for that, and made a perfect block there as well.
HARRISON BURTON WINS AT DAYTONA! #NASCAR | NBC and Peacock pic.twitter.com/cEEClLuHi9
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) August 25, 2024
Busch knew there wasn't much he could do, "Besides wrecking him," he explained after the race.
When asked if he would have entertained turning Burton for the win coming to the finish, Busch had an emphatic answer.
"No, there's a right way and a wrong way," Busch stated. "I certainly could have made it work for me doing it the wrong way, but that's -- I don't know. We got what we got."
What the driver of the No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet got was his second consecutive top-five finish, but without finishing a position higher in Saturday's race, Busch now heads into next weekend's NASCAR Cup Series regular-season finale at Darlington Raceway needing a win to force his way into the 16-driver Playoff field.
It's still possible. But what was staring Busch in the face at Daytona was a certain entry into the Playoffs. He passed it up in favor of doing the right thing.
While doing the right thing ultimately put Busch in a worse spot as far as his bid to make the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs goes, he earned a hell of a lot of respect from the Wood Brothers Racing team, which picked up its 100th victory all-time and first since the 2017 season.
"I wanted to say, every Tuesday night at Millbridge, the go-kart track, I sit with [Busch's dad] Tom Busch. He's the only guy that's got a blanket to sit on. You don't get dirty. I sit with him every Tuesday night. When I see him this coming Tuesday, I want to tell him how proud I am of Kyle, and the way he raced Harrison. That's the way you're supposed to do it, and they did it," Eddie Wood said in the Wood Brothers Racing post-race press conference.
Burton noted that he, himself, was very sideways on the final lap, which opened the door for Busch to clean him out if he wanted to. But he's very thankful that Busch ultimately chose not to.
"For a guy like Kyle Busch, who has been through what he's been through this year, kind of similar story [to mine] where his expectations were higher than where their year has been, this was a chance for them to turn that around the way we did tonight, too. He could have very easily wrecked me," Burton explained. "I wasn't in his shoes, but I was pretty sideways."
With Burton being the 34th-place driver in NASCAR Cup Series points, who is now locked into the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, he feels if Busch decided to step over the line, that not many people would have made much of a fuss about it.
"For him to race me the right way when I'm the guy that is low in points, if he wrecked me I don't think people would really look twice about it," Burton said, "right? It's just the way these races have gotten. He did things the right way."
At the end of the day, Busch was encouraged by yet another solid run by his race team, and he blamed his decisions leading up to Burton charging into the race lead on the final lap as the reason for him missing out on his first victory of the season.
Busch had opted to stay on the bottom lane with his former Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Christopher Bell in an effort to hold off the surging outside lane led by Burton. Bell could never really organize on the bottom lane to give Busch much of a fighting chance to do anything but come from behind on the second half of the final lap of the race.
"Yeah, I mean you're wide open. You're just relying on everything happening behind you. Unfortunately, [Christopher Bell], something happened off of [Turn] 2 where he got squirreled up and wasn't to my rear bumper, and then he was below the yellow line. I don't know what was going on. But completely killed the bottom lane, and the outside just rolled," Busch said. "Once we got to Turn 4, there just wasn't enough energy with enough cars behind me. I was relying on my own draft to help me pass [Harrison Burton]. That happened so slow that Ray Charles could have blocked that."
Busch said he analyzed things as it was unfolding and he thought about jumping out from in front of Bell to block Burton's run on the high-side coming off of Turn 2, but he wasn't confident in Burton's pushing abilities, and he was more comfortable with Bell, who Busch fielded a truck for at Kyle Busch Motorsports to kick off Bell's NASCAR National Series career.
"I could have jumped up in front of [Burton] and probably taken that. But I don't know that he would have kept straight on me. I had more trust in [Bell] there being a better ally, but it didn't work out," Busch said.
A few weeks after the last-lap chaos at Richmond Raceway, which saw Busch's Richard Childress Racing teammate Austin Dillon keep the race win, but lose the Playoff benefits that went along with it, Busch decided to play out the final lap at Daytona in the complete opposite fashion. And while Busch punching his ticket to the Playoffs at Daytona, and securing his 20th consecutive season with a race win would have been a cool story, it was refreshing to see drivers not lose their heads on the final lap of a race that had everything on the line.
Toby Christie is the Editor-in-Chief of Racing America. He has 15 years of experience as a motorsports journalist and has been with Racing America since 2023.