Kyle Busch’s 2025 season has been a rollercoaster. With flashes of brilliance shadowed by misfortune. From DNF heartbreaks to pit lane drama, the two-time Cup champ has found himself on the wrong side of luck more often than not. Add in his unusual struggles on road courses, where tire management and traffic timing have bitten him before, and you have a recipe for frustration.

Yeah, Chicago changes the narrative. In a wild Grant Park 165, Busch shrugged off an early spin and a pit stop penalty to claw back into the top five. For someone known for dominating asphalt tracks, finding this kind of grit and results on the streets of Chicago felt like a breakthrough.

Kyle Busch is happy with the team’s efforts at Chicago

Busch’s day began with great promise as he started sixth on the grid. He surged forward to finish Stage 1 in P2, gathering nine valuable points and showing a strong pace. But the street course romance didn’t last. In the early goings of Stage 2, a tire fell off and bit him hard. Locked-up brakes in Turn 7 sent Busch spinning, dropping him to 25th and raising his charge. Then, as if fate got bored, Busch served a pass-through penalty on lap 38 for exceeding three pit boxes. One race went from dream to disaster in no time. But that’s where the drama flared. The Richard Childress driver pivoted, pitted aggressively with fresh tires, and began charging forward again.

Talking to SiriusXM Radio, Kyle Busch broke down the strategy and the adversity. He said, “We could run that race on one pit stop, and so that was kind of our game plan—well, until we figured out that the tires had a little bit more fall-off than we had anticipated. So we tried to hang out a little bit longer there, and those two cautions that kinda fell back-to-back hurt us there at the start of the second stage. It gave those guys who pitted at the stage break an opportunity to get closer to us.”

The RCR driver had an early spin under braking into Turn 7 during Stage 2 of the Grant Park 165. According to the live updates at that time, this spin dropped him from around 14th-15th down to 25th on the track. Busch continued his race after stage one, racing his first set of tires as long as possible. However, those old tires did not favor him. Having no left rear grip, Busch found himself struggling with the car.

At one point, he was stuck behind Ryan Preece’s No. 60 car, hovering around P12-13 before the final pushes began. Having fresher tires than the person ahead of you can be frustrating, as you try to make up all the places and positions. Busch’s recovery drive is well documented, as he served a pit stop penalty on lap 38 for pitting three times; he methodically climbed the field to finish fifth, matching his season-best finish. But a caution was the next roadblock for Kyle Busch.

He goes on to reflect, saying, “Then the next thing—caution flew, right? So I was talking with Randall over the radio like, ‘I’ve kinda petered out here a little bit. My tires just aren’t as good as I would like them to be.’ I felt like there were gonna be guys in front of us who were gonna pit because they were just falling back too fast, and then there’d be a bunch of guys behind us that would pit because they wanted fresh tires to move forward.” 

Earlier in the season at Circuit of the Americas (COTA), Busch looked poised to break his drought. He dominated the EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix, leading a race-high 42 of 95 laps, more than anyone else on the track, but in classic road course form, he lost steam in the closing stages and slipped to a fifth-place finish. Though he held off competitive late charges and set the fastest lap early, a late caution allowed Christopher Bell to leapfrog him in the final laps. Nonetheless, Busch came away from COTA knowing he had the speed but not the stopwatch luck. His first top five and another near miss in a season that’s testing his resolve.

To combat the tire problems that Busch was facing, the team called him in again. The strategy paid off. Busch pitted twice, including at the start of the final stage, and rose from a mid-pack position back into the top 10. He goes on to say, “So we were right in that no-man’s-land, right in the middle of those guys, and I was like, ‘We should probably pit—just pit, take our lumps, go back. The fresh tires are really good.’ So we did that. We were able to make our way back up through the field.” 

All in all, Busch was really happy with the team’s effort despite the setback and the villain arc he is building for himself. This feels like a breath of fresh air. With this result, Kyle Busch is dreaming of a spot in the playoffs.

Kyle Busch’s playoff dreams are still alive

Kyle Busch’s playoff hopes are alive with a gritty performance in Chicago that saw him claw back from the depths of the field. After qualifying sixth for the Grant Park 165, the race looked promising for the No. 8 Chevrolet until it all nearly came undone.

An early spin sent the 40-year-old tumbling down the order as low as 25th at one point. But Busch, known for his resilience, mounted a comeback for the chaos of the street course strategy and caution, eventually salvaging a hard-earned fifth-place finish, matching his best result for the 2025 season so far.

After the race, Busch took to Instagram to share a brief message to his team. He said, “Good rebound after going around early. Was ripping that last run n got all the way up to 5th. Thx to the boyz for another solid road course piece.”

The finish puts Busch right at the edge of playoff contention. He said 16th in the standings, holding onto the final playoff spot by a thread. With seven regular-season races remaining, the margin for error is razor thin.

Although Busch hasn’t won since 2023, the path to the playoffs isn’t closed. A victory in any of the upcoming races would punch his ticket and remove the points pressure entirely. But as it stands, he is on the bubble, balancing consistency with desperation. Rowdy isn’t out of it, but if he needs to stay in, he will need to turn a top-five seed into something bigger. Time and track position are running out.