Is Kyle Busch Back In The Saddle?

1. Has Kyle Busch Served Notice That He’s Back?

There’s a big danger in overreacting when a driver has a good run to counter a batch of bad ones. A balance exists between a team turning a corner or just one day of all things going right being an aberration.

Even on a day when Kyle Busch bemoaned how hard it is for the current generation of car to be the aggressor, he finished fourth on Sunday (April 29) at Dover Motor Speedway after starting from the pole position.

Busch now has two top 10s in three races, his best string since last fall when he drove to back-to-back top fives at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Charlotte ROVAL. It was also his first start from the pole since World Wide Technology Raceway last year, a race in which he won from the pole.

Busch has now put together top 10s at two rather different tracks of late, at Texas Motor Speedway and Dover.

If Richard Childress Racing can keep up that versatility with the No. 8 car, then Busch stands a good chance of being the best car not from the Hendrick Motorsports or Joe Gibbs Racing camps.

2. Did Dover’s Fans Cement The Track’s One-Race Future?

When a track loses a race weekend, it’s easy to assume that the move is one step closer to that facility being shuttered.

Going from two race weekends to one can be a shot across the bow, a sign to a region that perhaps this track is not worth being as much of a part of the sport as it once was.

But a funny thing can happen with that, sometimes.

Not only does one fewer race weekend per season drive demand for ticket sales, but fans can also take it as a personal challenge. In what seems an ancient time ago, Darlington Raceway saw its spot on the schedule challenged. In 2004, its Labor Day date was shifted to November and the next year, it went from two race weekends down to one, its lone date being on Mother’s Day weekend, a time usually reserved to be time off.

I still remember being at a Darlington race in March 2003 and seeing a fan holding a poster saying, “NASCAR can take our tradition, but not our southern dedication. See ya in November.”

Many fans around the Low Country and PeeDee Region took that challenge personally, and fans in the Carolinas went to bat for Darlington which now not only has two weekends again but one on its beloved Labor Day Weekend.

Fans at Dover answered the call in a similar fashion on Sunday.