The 2022 NASCAR series has entered the second half of the season, and Kyle Busch is looking to make a big push. The 37-year-old NASCAR driver is currently ranked third in the Cup Series standings, meaning he’s on track to win his third Cup Series title. In an exclusive interview with PopCulture.com, Busch revealed his keys to staying near the top of the standings and making a run at another championship.
“Being able to win races and get those playoff points,” Busch exclusively told PopCulture. “Winning stages, winning races gives you those playoff points so those are key. Those just help make your days easier being able to make it through the playoffs and allow you to transfer through each round. So that’s always the biggest thing for everybody throughout the season is being able to grab those, and hopefully, we can.”
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So far this year, Busch has won one race, has 10 top 10 finishes and has five top-five finishes with one stage win. The race that Busch won was the Food City Dirt Race back in April, and it was a race Busch enjoyed competing in. “It’s fun, just different,” Busch said. “Our cars are very heavy and they don’t necessarily adhere well to the track. We don’t have a lot of downforce, we don’t have a lot of grip so we’re just sliding around very easily. You’re just trying not to crash essentially, so felt like we were fast there. We did a good job, we held ourselves up in contention most of the day. We came off a pit road leading the race at the end and a couple of guys got by me, and then they got to racing each other and then they wrecked each other and I was able to scooch in for the win.”
There hasn’t been one driver to dominate the competition this season as only three drivers (Ross Chastain, William Byron and Denny Hamlin) have won at least two races this season. One reason could be the next-gen cars that were introduced this year, and when asked about them, Busch revealed what’s been the biggest challenge for him.
“I think one of our biggest struggles I guess is traffic, which has always been a struggle for race cars,” Busch said. “Whether you’re an Indy Car driver or a NASCAR driver, you always talk about the arrow situations of being in traffic and this car here has some of those same deficits, which is unfortunate. But we all work through it the best we can. We make our race cars as fast as we can and sometimes, you got to go where the rest of the drivers aren’t so you can get by them and make the most out of the rest of the racetrack.”
