Kyle Busch announced last week that he will be running 5 races this season in the Spire Motorsports No. 7 Chevy Silverado. I’m sure that wasn’t welcome news to many who regularly compete in the series. Kyle has dominated the series since he first started running the Billy Ballew No. 51 back in the day, then continued his winning ways after forming his own team Kyle Busch Motorsports. Kyle brought the No. 51 with him to KBM and nobody seemed to be able to stop him. When Kyle showed up in the mighty No. 51, he usually beat the rest of the field like red-headed step children. On the Cup side of things, Kyle was winning races and championships with Joe Gibbs Racing. Kyle’s NASCAR world seemed to be in tune, until something changed in a big way. At the end of the 2022 season Kyle left JGR and took over the driving duties of the No. 8 Chevy ZL-1 at Richard Childress Racing. Many wondered why Kyle would leave JGR when he was so successful there. In September of 2023 Kyle sold KBM to Spire Motorsports. As things progressed through the 2023 season things on Kyles Cup series side of life weren’t going as planned with RCR, and he needed a winning outlet.
With the magical No. 51 gone, Kyle now found himself in two new things at Spire Motorsports. One of those things was that he was now driving a Chevy. That shouldn’t seem like a big deal, but KBM was Toyota’s “Factory” team in the truck series much like JGR is in the Cup series. KBM got all of the best equipment and engineers from Toyota. The second thing was that he wasn’t in the mighty No. 51 which brought him so much luck over the years. He was now in the No. 7.
In 2024 Kyle entered his first of five truck series events at Atlanta. By this time folks were questioning whether Kyle had lost his edge after having such a dismal 2023 season with RCR. The doubters were soon silenced when Kyle came out and whooped the field. He came back and did it again at Texas. In total of the five truck series events he ran in 2024… he won half of them.
After another disappointing season in 2024 at RCR where he failed to win a Cup series event for the first time in 18 years, Kyle came into this season ready for changes. In the Daytona 500 Kyle got caught up in a mess and left the track with a dismal 34th place finish. Kyle desperately needed to get back into the No. 7 Spire Motorsports Silverado and go steal some of the truck series kids lunch money. To Kyles pleasure, he did just that.
Connor Mosack started on the pole for the Fr8 208 but that changed quickly on the WFO high speed banks of Atlanta Motor Speedway. Before long, Kyle was back to his old ways running up front in the No. 7. Kyle won the second stage and led a race high 80 laps.
Kyle didn’t run away with the win though. In true truck series form, the race was physical. In the end It came down to a drag race to the checkers between Stewart Friesen and Bush, with Friesen leading Kyle out of turn 4. Kyle put his right bumper on the back left rear quarter panel of Friesen’s truck, effectively side drafting Friesen enough to be able to sneak by him at the checkers by less than a bumper. Tyler Ankrum finished third, Baley Curry finished fourth and Chandler Smith rounded out the top 5.
The truck series takes a few weeks off and will return on March 14th at Las Vegas for the EcoSave 200. You can watch the truck series all season long on FS1.