It’s a story as old as time.
At some point in each athlete’s life, they start slowly. Their younger counterparts begin to take responsibility. The once valuable legends become vulnerable to the point that all success is no longer boed and ridiculed, but cheered and celebrated.
This is where twice the Nascar Cup Series champion Kyle Busch is after Sunday’s race at Circuit of the Americas.
Busch participated in the third race in the 2025 season on a 59-race Winless Streak, but you would not know it until he drove on Sunday.
For the first time in almost two years, Busch dominated a race. He saw every bit on 63 o’clock the Cup Series Race winner who is well on his way to Nascar Hall of Fame.
It was until Christopher Bell, a newer star nine years Busch’s junior, had something to say about it.
With five laps to go in the Echopark Automotive Grand Prix, Bell Busch passed for the race. With older tires and a harmful racing car, Busch could only watch when Bell drove away.
Busch crossed the fifth in one day in which he led 42 laps and was by far the fastest man in Texas.
On the surface, Busch’s heartbreaking defeat is just that: another breed that is part of a career worth drought for one of NASCAR’s greatest drivers of all time. However, if you dig a little, it is an imminent warning that Busch may soon be in the same position as other previous greats.
Richard Petty had won 200 Nascar Cup series and seven championships at the end of the 1984 season. In the next eight years he would go winless and finish in the top -10 in points just once. In 1989 and 1992, Petty failed to end a single race within the top-10.
The king’s tumbling from the top of the pile was anything but graceful, as those like Darrell Waltrip, Dale Earnhardt and Rusty Wallace struggled with their own revolutionary war to get Nascars once superb ruler from his throne.
Like Petty, Jimmie Johnson also found his way to the championship. Over 19 full-time seasons, Johnson won 83 races and put together one of the biggest dynasties in the NASCAR story from 2006 to 2010 and won five consecutive titles.
But Father Time doesn’t care about rings or trophies. After winning at Dover in June 2017, Johnson went on a profit during the three and a half years of his career. In 2019 and 2020, Johnson completely missed the playoffs. It was a shocking regression for a driver who at one point seemed unbeatable.
Almost a decade after he won the first of his two cup series championships, Busch seems to move on the same road as Petty and Johnson. In 2024 he missed the playoffs and suffered the first winless season of his career.
His performance on Cota on Sunday was a glimpse of the driver who used to be, but as little as five years ago, everyone expected Busch to hold Bell for the victory, even under negative conditions. Such are expectations of a generational such as Busch.
Cota was not the first close call for Busch during its winless streak. At Daytona in August 2024, Parker Retzlaff ran Harrison Burton past Busch on the last lap and left Busch to settle for others. A week later, the South 500 marked at Darlington the end of the regular season. Busch was forced to settle for another runner when Chase Briscoe took the victory.
In Kansas in September, Busch led in step 3 when he spun by 33 laps to go. Again, the stars did not stand.
Sunday’s race at Cota can easily be classified as Busch’s best performance in the next gene. His average driving position was a fantastic 2.14. His Pit crew was flawless, as was the crew manager Randall Burnett’s call on top of the pitbox.
Unfortunately for Busch, Bell was slightly better when it was most counted. Bell’s competition -winning pass was a Joe Gibbs saw Busch doing time and time again when Busch ran Gibbs No. 18. On Sunday, Gibbs was on the other side of the coin and rooted Bell to victory.
At 39 years old, Busch will probably retire at any time over the next two to three years. He will have plenty of chances to hold a new win and break the longest drought in his career, but he must take advantage when the opportunities arise.
Busch is not the same driver he was five years ago, and Nascar’s young talent gets better during the day. On the surface, Sunday’s race was a battle between a spotted young gun and a cunning veteran, but under the surface it was a change in the guard who proved that Busch will probably never return to the heights he once reached.
-Samuel Stubbs, Field Level Media
