Kyle Busch registered his 5th DNF this season at Pocono. Denny Hamlin came only a second short of his 8th win at the racetrack. A lot of time has passed since these two drivers raced as teammates within the folds of Joe Gibbs Racing, the team where Rowdy turned a two-time cup champion. 

But only about a year and a half separated from his nasty split with JGR, KFB’s fortunes at Richard Childress Racing are turning worse by the very next weekend. As we stand, Denny’s got his flag flying high with a playoff spot, as opposed to Busch, currently lingering 98 points below the cut-line. The worst part? There are only 5 races left to mount a challenge, if any. With that sorrowful picture in mind, Denny brushed off a potential comeback story for his former teammate on the latest episode of his podcast.

Denny Hamlin douses playoff flames for Kyle Busch with 5 races left

Rowdy’s season-long tussle with RCR’s equipment returned early at practice in Pocono. He reported steering issues but later clarified that the team had that fixed before the race on Sunday. After qualifying P24 on a behemoth of a racetrack in the heart of the Pocono Mountains, the #8 car suffered an oil leak. This signaled bad news for Kyle, who had already qualified P24. But initial track position rarely matters on a surface 2.5 miles long. Regardless, NASCAR sent Kyle Busch to start from the back of the pack, alongside Corey LaJoie, the only other driver dropped to the rear for repairs before Sunday’s race. 

With just 40 laps to go on a restart, LaJoie sent Busch across the racetrack, taking out three other drivers in the process to bring out the 6th caution of the race. After the ensuing damage, Kyle Busch had one more DNF to his name. LaJoie finished his race 19th, almost 21 seconds behind Pocono champ, Ryan Blaney. These unfortunate developments revealed what many assumed was an accepting side to Kyle Busch when he answered the media after being safely released from the infield care center. It was almost as if Rowdy was demoralized. All these factors combined led Jared Allen to ask his co-host Denny Hamlin recently on Actions Detrimental: “If you’re Kyle Busch, what is your mindset for the rest of the season? Like, how do you get your confidence back?”

To which Denny replied, “You just try to get something going. I mean, You try to get a solid top 10… Just some kind of solid finish that gets you like, back to being competitive, you know?” He elaborated that what he thinks the “tough part about all this is, that [Busch] for the better part of his career was the guy. The best driver on the racetrack. And now, week in, week out. We don’t hear from him that much.”

Denny then talked about how the #8 team has had “just all kinds of stuff going on that’s not normal” which may be why people don’t hear from their driver as much as they used to. He recognized Busch’s ‘Hall of Fame’ pedigree, and stressed how rare it is to witness someone of his caliber to go on such a “sustained bad run”.

But Denny had his ‘legitimate’ doubts as he made known to the listeners when he said, “Can he win a race? Yes, absolutely. But not legitimately. He’s not gonna win one legitimately. And that’s just a fact. And I apologize to the Kyle Busch fans listening. But we have to be honest with ourselves… I’m not putting this on Kyle. Trust me, I’ve been teammates. The guy is elite. He’s great. But you gotta show that you can at least consistently run in the top 5 to even have a chance to win. And we haven’t seen that lately. And so the speed hasn’t been there.”

Nevertheless, Denny also noticed the contrary narrative surrounding Kyle Busch’s advances somehow winning from the back of the pack with the example of Joey Logano at Nashville. As Denny explained, “Now, can he win a race? Yes, Joey Logano won a race from the 17th at Nashville. So it is possible, but you’re gonna need some crazy sh*t to happen.”

However, “The odds are very very low that, you know, you’re gonna win a race running 17th all day. You’re gonna need fuel mileage to be a factor. You’re gonna need just chaos at the end. And trust me, NASCAR racing nowadays, that’s half of what it is. So there’s always a chance… But realistically, as a Kyle Busch fan, like I am. It’s just not a legit possibility right now from what I’ve seen. I just don’t see them showing up one weekend, and then all of a sudden, being the fastest car on the racetrack.” – declared Denny Hamlin.

Although a controversial address, Denny’s observations weren’t to be completely negative. If anything, he wished to encourage his former JGR stablemate – Someone he still trails in race wins and championships on the back of a ‘highlight reel’ season. And in Jared Allen’s next question picking Hamlin’s mind on the Kyle Busch situation, the #11 driver shared some insightful advice for Rowdy’s teetering #8 parade.

Hamlin says there is a “light at the end of the tunnel”

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Rowdy may have recorded his 5th DNF in 7 weeks at Pocono. But approaching the Brickyard 400 next weekend, he will only have 5 races left to make the playoffs. If he fails to win any of those races, he risks not making the playoffs for the first time in over a decade. Hence, Allen asked Denny: “With only a handful of races left in the regular season, ‘how do you approach these last 5 or 6 if you’re Kyle Busch?'”

Denny’s best advice to his friend and former mentor was: “I think the only way to approach it is to be a professional, and you show up and do your job to the best of your ability. And then control what you can control. I mean, that’s my advice. Anyone ever wanting to hear is that you do the best that you possibly can. And you let the chips fall wherever they may. And if you don’t have the fastest car? You try to drive that car to a couple spots better.”

“Here’s where a opportunity could pop up for a team like Kyle Busch,” Denny began. “You get inside that close to the last fuel window. We’re five laps short on making on fuel. You know what? Screw it. Let’s pit. And we’re gonna try to squeeze this thing to the end. Nobody else is gonna make it. And we’re gonna pit and we’re gonna win this thing. That’s how you could make it happen,” opined Denny, pointing to the ultimate fuel gamble strategy that could help Kyle Busch in the next five races.

But he also argued against that very advice, saying, “Short of that, I just don’t know how it’s going to happen. I just don’t. I haven’t seen the speed out of RCR all year long, certainly not where they were last year… They haven’t been in position all year long, you know, with the exception of maybe one or two races, or maybe you wanna talk about a superspeedway race. But you know, the light at the end of the tunnel is that there’s no place to go but up. He’s had a terrible skid. I commend him so much on handling it. 

To conclude these interesting discussions, Denny Hamlin would make an amazing quote that perfectly sums up Kyle Busch’s ugly situation. “I think he still shows up ready to go. And still be the fastest driver on any given day as long as he’s got a horse that can go with him. But we just haven’t seen that horse show up” – he said. With Keith Rodden temporarily taking charge of VP duties at Richard Childress Racing following Andy Petree’s retirement, the winds are blowing at intimidating speeds inside the troubled garage hosting Kyle Busch’s #8 seat.

What do you think of the whole situation? Let us know in the comments below.