At Daytona, Kyle Busch might have saved his reputation by finishing 15th after starting on his first-ever pole, but the race at the EchoPark Speedway was a completely different story, and not in a good way. In the middle of Stage 2, a contact with Noah Gragson saw him hit the inside wall and be out of race contention. “That’s kids these days,” Busch had said, calling out Gragson. However, as we now get to analyze the crash better, Denny Hamlin has taken the “kid’s” side on this one.

Denny Hamlin was unimpressed with Kyle Busch at Atlanta

Talking about the incident, Denny Hamlin mentioned on his podcast, “I never saw a good replay of that. All I saw was the one from the inside camera when he’s sliding down towards the inside wall. What happened there?”

Co-host Jared Allen observed that Busch slid up and backed off the gas. Gragson bumped into him, largely because Kyle Busch was a bit “out of shape.” Hamlin wondered whether it was similar to his incident with Corey Heim at Daytona.

Busch’s defense was that he did not get a good exit out of Turn 2 and drifted out to the wall. Of course, he tried to correct the mistake and slot back into the line. According to him, Gragson did not check up and ran him over to try to get Busch’s momentum back.

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Hamlin observed, “So it sounds like, what he acknowledges that he was out of shape. He acknowledges that Gragson was trying to help him, but didn’t help him correctly, is what he’s saying there. It’s very hard to do, I mean Gragson’s more than likely got someone on his a– too. If you’re the first guy that gets out of shape, you almost have to deal with whatever consequences come from that.”

According to Hamlin, even if Gragson tried to help slot him back into line, the situation was already risky because Busch was not stable. So, as he says, if someone hits you, it’s more likely because you were the one who was “out of shape” first.

Is the Richard Childress Racing driver ever going to win again?

The EchoPark Speedway Truck race proves that Kyle Busch is still every bit the capable driver that he is. Even his Daytona 500 showed that there is life in the old dog still. The best part is that there is plenty of time to try and rediscover his winning form again.

This weekend, the NASCAR Cup Series heads to the Circuit of the Americas, and this could be one more chance for him.

Of course, all eyes will be on Shane van Gisbergen, and probably even Connor Zilisch. However, Kyle Busch is underrated on road courses because he has performed well on them.

Last year at COTA, he finished in an excellent 5th place, before following it up with 5th at Chicago and 10th at Sonoma.

In his previous visits to the Circuit of the Americas, Kyle Busch finished 9th in 2024 and 2nd in 2023. Looking at these strong numbers, COTA definitely feels like the place where the Rowdy could finally break his winless 95-race streak.