DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – It took 20 attempts for Dale Earnhardt Sr. to win the DAYTONA 500. When he took the checkered flag in 1998, the seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion ended a winless streak that had reached 59 races.
Likewise, Kyle Busch has been frustrated in his first 19 starts in the Great America Race. The two-time series champion hopes he’ll find the same magic Earnhardt did in his 20th attempt on Sunday (2:30 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Busch drives for Richard Childress Racing, just as Earnhardt did. Earnhardt failed to win a race in the season before his breakthrough victory at Daytona. Busch was winless last year, breaking a series-record streak of 19 straight seasons with at least one victory.
Busch, whose winless streak has reached 57 races, certainly knows the history.
“Twenty years of trying,” he said wistfully. “There was another storied racer of the past that won on his 20th try and that was a pretty big deal. He was a former RCR driver as well, so it’d certainly be nice to win that race and do it with RCR in the No. 8 Zone Chevrolet. So that would be pretty cool.”
Nor does Busch lack confidence in the quality of Childress’ superspeedway package.
“We’ve had really good speed being down here,” Busch said. “These guys build great (superspeedway) race cars, so when we go to Daytona, Atlanta, Talladega, we feel like those places are really good for us.
“We’ve got really good speed. I just told someone that it’s an 80 percent luck/20 percent skill race. Others would disagree, but I feel like you have to have a lot of things go your way, and you have to have the stars align. Being able to lead (after) the final pit stop is certainly going to put yourself in a really good position.”
Source: Reid Spencer | NASCAR Wire Service
