You know, Kyle Busch, this is around the same point in your career where Dale Earnhardt won the Daytona 500 …
“Trust me, I’m well aware,” Busch said on Wednesday during Daytona 500 Media Day. “Thank you very much. I hope we can talk about some of the same storylines on Sunday. That would be nice.”
Twenty years of trying, twenty years of frustration?
“Well, it’s 20 years, right,” Busch said. “But it’s my 19th attempt because there was one year I was in a hospital bed on (Daytona) 500 Sunday. “I knew someone was going to point it out but it still counts. It’ll be 20 this year and it will be 20 again next year.”
That’s a good way of looking at it — two shots to get his own version of the historic 1998 Daytona 500 when Earnhardt finally broke through after decades of winning every other race at the World Center of Racing and losing the big one just as many times.
2007: Pushing Mark Martin to the win before Kevin Harvick passed them both on the outside before the frontstretch crash
2016: Denny Hamlin won the race by being the first to pull to the outside on the final lap and Busch ahead of him chose to stay on the bottom
2023: Leading at the 500th mile under caution but got crashed in overtime
In fact, Busch is one of just five drivers to have led the race at the 500th mile to have not won it, thanks to overtime rules that were established in 2005. Prior to that, Daytona 500s ended at the 500th mile no matter what, even if under caution.
Where does that rank on the pain scale?
“High, high,” Busch said. “I don’t have the trophy or the ring. It just means that I could have, should have, would have if it was prior to 2005, right,” he said. “That sucks. It is what it is. I guess 2005, I knew the rules coming in anyways. That’s when I first started in the Daytona 500 was 2005, so … It happens.”
He hasn’t quite enjoyed the run of success at Daytona that Earnhardt did but that was also an era with far less parity. Busch has had a lot of races that he’s picked apart here over the years that don’t even make those three obvious ones.
“Like, right now, looking at it today, there have been some close calls, a lot of heartache and disappointment, obviously,” Busch said. “Some really good runs. Some really good runs that didn’t fare well at all, being crashed out.
“I think we had the fastest car here in 2009 or ’10 or something and wrecked on the backstretch of a bad bump draft. Stuff like that knocks you out of these things and you just don’t have control over it. It would certainly be amazing to win, I’m sure.
Busch said the biggest win of his career, and he may or may be including his two championship race wins, was the first at home at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in 2009.
“I couldn’t imagine anything else that this could compare to.”
Busch is one of the odds-on favorites to win this race and that’s a sentiment shared throughout the garage too. The Great American Race is such a crap shoot but Busch has finished in the top-10 of three of the four races at Daytona using the current generation car.
“I don’t know what it is,” Busch said. “I would say, when you’re good under the hood, that helps a lot. The (Earnhardt Childress Engine) guys have done a good job over the years, for a long, long time but they have been notable for years of having really good restrictor plate engines.
“I’d like to say that’s probably part of it. Being in the Chevy bunch and having strength in numbers probably helps too.”
Busch was also asked if there is something sort of poetic about reach 20 years and still searching for his first win in NASCAR’s biggest race.
“No, no, nothing poetic,” Busch said with a laugh.
Has he ever spoken to Richard Childress about it — the similarities between his former driver and his current driver?
“No, no, we haven’t necessarily talked about the same sort of storyline,” Busch said. “We have talked about how Richard is bound and determined to get me my first Daytona 500 trophy. He’s really working, and always does work hard, and pushed everyone at the team to make all of us successful.
“It’s been fun to work with him and see his fire, passion and desire for RCR the past 60 years.”
So at the end of the day, maybe even this Sunday, what does he need to finally break through?
“Luck,” he said.
That’s it?
“Yeah, that’s it,” Busch said. “Go back and read all my quotes from (spring) Talladega last year. I said I lucked into that one. I was in the right spot at the right time. All the cautions fell while I was leading. I actually got passed by Bubba (Wallace) being pushed by (Ryan) Blaney, and then they got squirrely, they spun and crashed and I was leader when the caution came out.
“I mean, I wasn’t going to win and Bubba and Blaney, if they didn’t crash, Bubba would have won because they were so fast, and (Blaney) is so good at pushing, I think I had Brad (Keselowski) behind me and we’re not as good at that.”
Ultimately, Busch isn’t sure his career needs the Harley J. Earl Trophy, even if it’s something he wants really badly.
It’s the only major victory missing from his resume, and with the exception of the three new tracks added over the past three years, the only race he really hasn’t won
“I mean, it’s missing, right,” Busch said. “There’s no checkmark there. Does it do anything to solidify your career, validate the things that you’ve done or accomplished here? I don’t think so. I mean, I look at Mark Martin and Rusty Wallace and Tony Stewart as some greats that have blue jackets that made it to the Hall of Fame that haven’t won this race.
“It would certainly be nice to not have to worry about that going in and have this trophy at home.”
Here’s to year 19 or 20 or whatever it is.
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.