The playoff grid was in good form in the final battle. Denny Hamlin, Kyle Larson, Chase Briscoe, and William Byron were racing for the NASCAR Cup Series championship, and all of them put in spectacular efforts. However, tire gremlins assaulted their pace throughout the race at Phoenix Raceway. In fact, the sheer number of mishaps made fans frown. However, Kyle Busch, who was also one of the victims, took a balanced approach towards Goodyear, NASCAR’s $1.97 billion tire partner.

The two-time Cup Series champion entered the one-mile short track with little ambition. For the second year in a row, Kyle Busch had failed to crack the playoffs. Hence, he was solely focused on putting up a good performance. And he succeeded in doing so – despite Goodyear’s tire issues.

Kyle Busch dissects the tire dilemma

Well, the Phoenix battle was messy, mainly from the second stage onwards. On lap 106, Chase Briscoe cut a right-rear tire and complained of vibration. Then, AJ Allmendinger, Austin, and Ty Dillon all faced similar tire problems. Kyle Busch himself fell prey to a flat right-rear tire on lap 148. Denny Hamlin, the dominant racer of the day, faced a flat left-rear tire after winning Stage 2, and soon after, both Kyle Larson and Chase Briscoe faced tire issues simultaneously. In other words, Goodyear tires made things difficult for many drivers in Phoenix.

However, Kyle Busch did not pin the blame on Goodyear. “I don’t think it was anything with Goodyear’s fault,” the Richard Childress Racing driver told Frontstretch. He further explained, “When you run softer compounds, you tread lower on air pressure, and you pay the price right so nothing. I don’t think it was anything with Goodyear’s fault. I felt like the tire was pretty good, pretty racy. Just…we got aggressive on ours and lost one, so thankfully we were able to rebound from that.” 

Kyle Busch has been riding a 91-race winless streak, topped by a lackluster season. The last time he collected a top ten was in Las Vegas, and his last top five result came in Chicago. So the 63-time Cup race winner was happy to finish in 5th at Phoenix. “Yeah, it feels really good. You know, we went backward a little bit there in the middle of the race on an adjustment. Andy and the guys, we just redid it. We just went back the other way. And the car came to life, so it really became good…And positive note was to get a top five to end the season on build some momentum in our team, and everybody at RCR to get ready for the Daytona 500.”

The main turning point came on lap 309, when playoff contender William Byron brought out the final caution. Not only did it shuffle the leaderboard for the championship, but it also opened a fair path for Kyle Busch. He continued, “Actually, the caution that came out helped us because it allowed us to take the wave around and get back on the lead lap. And that was our saving grace for the day.”

Kyle Busch handed a clean chit to NASCAR’s trusted tire partner. However, he did not hand one to an insurance company, which allegedly tricked him.

Trapped in a financial dilemma

Kyle Busch is now 40 years old. Although no plans of retiring from NASCAR are yet in the news, the veteran driver is still planning for the future. He bought what he thought was a safe life insurance plan that would provide self-funding income for his retirement. The Pacific Life Insurance Company told him that if he paid a million dollars for five years, he could withdraw $800,000 a year once he turned 52. However, things turned fishy when the company sent a sixth premium notice on what was supposed to be a five-year payment plan. Plus, all of the $10.4 million he invested was gone.

So Kyle and Samantha Busch are now suing Pacific Life for $8.5 million, alleging the insurance company failed to reveal the true risks of the policies, along with providing false and negligent representations of what was supposed to be tax-free income for retirement. His money was going to the insurance company’s account instead of the market, so his investment never went up as the market rose.

“That was a lie,” Kyle Busch said about the company’s deal on the eve of NASCAR’s season finale. “I looked at it was like, this sounds too good to be true, but you’ve got to believe in those that are looking at it for you and trusting in the people with Pacific Life email addresses that are sending you the documents.” He added his personal mission in this. “It’s not just race car drivers or athletes or rich people of the world, and this is why we’re going public with it.”

Clearly, Kyle Busch is having a tumultuous time both on the track and off-track. Nevertheless, his confidence will propel him forward, as we look forward to Rowdy’s redemption in the near future.