“Good day for ourselves,” Kyle Busch quipped after the Michigan race. The No. 8 Richard Childress Racing team scored points on the track and in the pit stall as well. After what seemed like ages, Busch was finally back to a good performance. However, the same cannot be said for his toughest opponents. The weather delay may have clobbered their runs, which Busch relished.

Denny Hamlin found his car staggering due to aerodynamic problems. Then Kyle Larson spun out on lap 116, collecting several cars. With this season’s diamonds losing their sparkle, Kyle Busch hopes to show some of his own luster now.

Kyle Busch capitalizes on opponents’ misery

Michigan International Speedway is a unique track on the Cup Series schedule. The two-mile oval has 18 degrees of banking through the turns, making it one of the widest tracks in NASCAR. This results in high corner speeds and plenty of grooves. So when NASCAR had to make some crucial decisions due to inclement weather, many drivers were affected. For instance, the practice was a combined 40-minute session devoid of groups. Then, qualifying was canceled altogether, with the starting grid determined by metrics.

Finally, after 51 laps during which Denny Hamlin spun out, the race was postponed to Monday. The lack of practice staggered Hamlin’s run and also caused a lap 116 ruckus with Kyle Larson at the helm. Yet Kyle Busch benefited from this unique situation. After leading three times for 24 laps (the third-highest number of laps this season), Rowdy secured a stage win and a 4th-place finish. In a post-race interview, he confessed to excelling when his rivals suffered: “It just gets you hopeful that it deters somebody else and you can excel on that.”

The weather gods were exceptionally nagging—the start of the race faced a 2-hour delay anyway. Then, showers poured down 51 laps later, and NASCAR postponed the event—staggering the momentum and flow that some drivers achieved. For Kyle Busch, it was an advantage. “Yeah, I mean, it is important. You gotta be on top of your game, gotta be ready to go at any moment’s notice if they call you to go or whatever. Being around for so long, you know, it doesn’t really deter me much.”

Along with his rivals’ misery, Kyle Busch’s team also supported him. No. 8 crew chief Randall Burnett made a crucial pit call after Corey LaJoie’s wreck on lap 135. He supplied Busch with two fresh tires instead of four, allowing him to grab the lead on the restart. Although Busch could not maintain it due to tightness, the result was still impressive. And Rowdy did it after barely recovering from a wrist injury. However, another Cup driver won a race recently under similar circumstances.

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Busch had a precedent to look up to

The rain has been a permanent fixture in this season. It threw an exceptionally tough challenge to drivers at the Chicago Street Race, in which wet-weather tires battled it out in damp conditions. Even defending race winner Shane van Gisbergen found himself losing control as skidding Chase Briscoe hit him. Kyle Larson spiraled out of control as well, skidding and shooting into a tire barrier. In all that mess, however, Alex Bowman emerged victorious—he maneuvered the rain challenges to his advantage.

And he achieved it after recovering from severe injuries last season, much like Kyle Busch. Bowman fractured his vertebra after competing in teammate Kyle Larson’s High Limit Racing Series. Despite that, he ended an 80-race winless streak while his rivals faltered in the rain. “I broke my back, had a brain injury… you start to second guess if you’re ever gonna get a chance to win a race again. We’re gonna drink so much damn bourbon [tonight]… I’m probably gonna wake up naked on the bathroom floor,” Bowman gleefully said in Chicago.

Considering that Kyle Busch pulled himself back up to the front row after daunting circumstances as well, the RCR driver should do well in the future. We are hoping for his quick success!