Yet again, the doubts surround Kyle Busch. Will he seriously go winless in the 2024 Regular Season? With the Southern 500 finale approaching Darlington in a few days, it is still too early to answer that question definitively. The #8 team has steadily improved their results over the past few weekends. They finished twelfth at Richmond, third in Michigan, and runners-up at Daytona. Hence, if Kyle Busch plans to place any better than that, Darlington would be the perfect place to make it happen next Sunday.

After all, despite his best finish of the year coming in this race, he missed out on a guaranteed playoff spot, by the narrowest of margins. But his namesake Kyle Petty noticed another gaping hole in Kyle Busch’s heavily battle-worn armor at Daytona. In his post-race address on NASCAR’s official YouTube channel, Petty summed it up perfectly with a biting question: “Has Kyle Busch never watched Joey Logano or Brad Keselowski take control of a Speedway race?”

Kyle Petty calls out Rowdy’s glaring weakness

It is not recent news that superspeedways have been the Achilles Heel of Kyle Busch’s near-two-decade-long Cup Series career. Especially, on the 2.5-mile high-banked layouts of Daytona & Talladega. This 2x champion has only won thrice in his seventy-seven combined starts on those two racetracks, with his most recent coming at last year’s Talladega summer race. The last time he won at Daytona was in 2008, in his first-ever season for Joe Gibbs Racing.

However, what came as a surprise was Kyle Petty calling out that glaring weakness across social media platforms after Kyle Busch’s most recent outing at Daytona. The son of Richard Petty, who also won his first race with Wood Brothers Racing, similar to Harrison Burton, was pretty excited to dissect this race. In his words, “It’s Daytona. And we know what Daytona means–blocking! We saw plenty of it. We saw accidents, we saw all the big ones.” But that wasn’t grazing Kyle Petty’s mind. As he puts it, ‘That’s just a given at Daytona and Talladega.'” Instead, the NASCAR icon wished to “talk about Kyle Busch.”

And Petty had some choice words for Kyle Busch. “Has he forgotten how to speedway race? What in god’s name happened?” – questioned Kyle Petty rhetorically. “He has the control of the race on a green-white-checkered. He has the inside line, he gets there with his friend Christopher Bell who’s going to help him ‘cus they were teammates at one point. In time they take control of the race, they run on the bottom of the racetrack that first lap.” The 64-year-old then shouted out Parker Retzlaff, who was on the bumper of Harrison Burton on the outside line during that last lap, pushing the #21 past Kyle Busch.

Petty exclaimed, “Yeah, I know he finished seventh. But he changed the complexion of this race.” He focused his attention back to when Burton finally took the 40th and final lead of the race from Kyle Busch and remarked, “As soon as Harrison Burton gets to the front, what does he do? He pulls down, and he blocks Kyle Busch.” 

Understandably moved by the emotions of the race like everyone who watched it on Sunday, Petty then lamented Rowdy’s defense on drafting tracks. He questioned if the #8 driver watched any pre-race footage to prepare for his advances. If not, Kyle Petty suggested he watched the VHS tapes of fellow Cup champs Joey Logano & Brad Keselowski, who have statistically run better than Kyle Busch on superspeedways. “Has Kyle Busch never watched Joey Logano or Brad Keselowski take control of a Speedway race?” – inquired Petty sarcastically. 

He continued, “Does he not know what video is? Somebody needs to send him a DVR, a TiVo, whatever it is. Send him some old race footage, so he understands this.” From there, Kyle Petty moved onto the topic of the blocks that Harrison Burton threw on Kyle Busch before approaching the checkered flag which snubbed the latter’s chances of winning for good.  

Regardless, the Rowdy of 2024 maintained his composure but most of all his dignity, and did not resort to any ‘detrimental’ measures to get past Burton through turns three and four. This allowed the son of Jeff Burton to grab his first Cup Series victory after 98 races in the premier tier. And while Kyle Busch remains hopeful of a win at the Southern 500 to not miss the playoffs for the first time in the elimination era, Kyle Petty laid bare exactly what the win meant for Wood Brothers Racing, as a former driver for the race team.

Wood Brothers’ historic win: A moment for the ages

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Throughout his gloried career, Kyle Petty has mostly been behind the wheel of the #42 & #45 cars for his family’s NASCAR team, Petty Enterprises. The son of the very King himself could not replicate his father’s incredible accomplishments. In his 829 Cup Series starts, spanning three decades, Kyle Petty won 8 NASCAR Cup races, and none came for his family’s race team. He found the most success driving for Felix Sabates-owned SABCO Racing in the early ’90s. But in 1986, Wood Brothers Racing’s #7 car took Kyle Petty to victory lane for the first time.

And almost four decades later, the memories of those blessings still burn bright in Kyle Petty’s mind. As he continued his video monologue address, Petty expressed his emotions, stating, “What I do want to say, though. Great race for Harrison Burton. Great first win. So many guys have won their first race with the Wood Brothers. Kyle Petty, Dale Jarrett, Trevor Bayne, Ryan Blaney, Elliott Sadler. I can go down the list. David Pearson won 43, Dan Gurney, Cale Yarborough, and AJ Foyt all won their second race driving for the Wood Brothers. So congratulations to the Wood Brothers on their 100th win.”

He concluded, “The Wood Brothers have been here a long time. They’re going to be here a long time.” Certainly, as NASCAR’s oldest active race team, they have been here since 1950. For most of their existence, they’ve held a strong relationship with the Ford Motor Company. But Harrison Burton won’t be driving for WBR starting next year. As of 2025, Josh Berry will be the new driver of the #21 Mustang Dark Horse on a multi-year contract. On Josh Berry’s topic, he could’ve ended his race as Sunday’s ultimate victor instead of Harrison Burton, if not for Austin Cindric’s nudge on the backstretch that sent his #4 car airborne and upside down. 

That said, Kyle Busch could’ve also ended his night with fewer doubts and fewer questions about his playoff chances. After all, the last time he won at Darlington was almost 16 years ago. Can he prove Kyle Petty wrong by winning at Talladega another time, but this time, in the playoffs?