The rain-shortened races have different effects on different racers. While Brad Keselowski has turned to believe wild theories conjured by fans, Austin Hill is quite frustrated. Rain may have marred the racing spirits of the drivers, but their crew members never stopped to salvage the losses incurred. Richard Childress Racing’s Kyle Busch is among such drivers who have ended up faring well in such dire conditions. Not just once, but twice!

The 2019 Cup Series champion ranked 5th in both the rain-shortened races—Chicago and Atlanta. Randall Burnett, crew chief for Kyle Busch, revealed the calculated risk they took to land Busch on the winning ranks. 

Kyle Busch’s crew thought out of the box for Chicago

Kyle Busch’s crew did the complete opposite of what any crew would think of doing under such conditions. When asked about how they went about managing amid such quick modifications to the day, Burnett explained, “Yeah, it’s been an eventful two weeks for the #8 car here though the last couple weeks. Chicago obviously got the entire barrier pretty early and, you know, kind of got behind the eight ball on that a little bit. So, you know, right from then, we were like, ‘Okay well, what’s our opportunities going to be?’

“So we pitted every chance we got just to kind of see like the guys that were leading they weren’t gonna pit. So, we kind of took the opposite end of that and just kind of tried to work it out,” said Burnett. 

The brewing weather had the crew already predicting that the Chicago race won’t get completed. Burnett said that they thought the race would go on for a maximum of 85 laps, but Chicago stopped it at 75. 

“That was when NASCAR came in and said, ‘Hey, we’re gonna run the 75 because of darkness.’ We’re like, well that was a win. So, we were able to take advantage of that you know,” continued Burnett. He further drew a comparison with the way Aric Almirola won at Loudon in 2021 to make it clearer. Even that race had been shortened due to darkness. 

Watch This Story: Kyle Busch’s concerns become a reality as fans bash the Chicago race after an unwanted stoppage

Extra cautions were a blessing for Busch in Atlanta

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Burnett said that the initial progress of Busch was not very impressive. So, the rain was something they were looking forward to. “…just wasn’t making the progress. We’d start making progress and then you know something would happen – we’d get shuffled out or we kind of got together got up in the wall with #42 car there at one point and lost a bunch of track positions. So, we were just watching the rain,” he revealed.

He further talked about how they had to make use of the extra cautions to salvage such a dire situation. “….had the help of a couple extra cautions in there to slow the lap count down, and unfortunately, it got there around whatever lap 185 or whatever it was when we ended there. You know, just kind of trying to take advantage thinking outside the box ….” said Burnett. 

Two consecutive rain-shortened races are enough. Fans are certainly hopeful they get to watch good ol’ full races at both New Hampshire and Pocono. It is only then that racers like Busch can exhibit their full potential. 

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