Kyle Busch looks to Iowa to climb back into a NASCAR Cup playoff spot

NEWTON, Iowa — Kyle Busch is still confused by the contact Ross Chastain made with him on the last lap of last weekend's race at Sonoma.

Busch was running fifth and Chastain sixth when Busch's fuel pressure stumbled in Turn 4 of the 1.99-mile road course. Chastain made a move but hit Busch's car in Turn 7. Busch spun and went on to finish 12th. That incident cost Busch seven points. He left Sonoma eight points behind Bubba Wallace for the final playoff spot.

"It stumbled getting into (Turn) 4, but I'm not sure that made any difference," Busch said Saturday at Iowa Speedway of the last lap at Sonoma. "I was far enough off-line. I was a groove and a half out of the way and (Chastain) just comes barreling on in there and blows through my door. I don't know the significance. Obviously it hurt me being able to have just enough fuel to get back re-going and then try to fend off the rest of the cars."

Busch will start seventh in Sunday's inaugural Cup race at Iowa Speedway — his best starting spot in the last five races. Busch goes into the race with a career-long 37-race winless drought. Pre-race coverage begins at 6:30 p.m. ET on USA Network.

It has been a challenging season for Busch and his team. He has five top 10s in 16 starts. The two-time Cup champion is working to help build Richard Childress Racing back to a winning organization.

"You always envy the Jimmie (Johnson) - Chad (Knaus) era and you look at that and you're like 'Damn, it looks so easy,' and they made it look so easy and made the rest of us feel so dumb," Busch said. "Then 2015 to 2019 happened with me, Adam (Stevens), Ben (Beshore), our group of guys where it was like 'OK, wow, it can be easy. This does exist.' If you're not finishing in the top three on a given day you pretty much screwed yourself.

"So it can happen. It's just a matter of being able to understand everything to the finest, littlest detail of what's in your racecar. Why do you have that right front spring? Why do you have that left rear camber? Why do you have whatever you have where you have it and understanding what all of those pieces do together to make you fast and so that's what we're towards. Fast cars cure all. Next, obviously, you've got to have good pit stops. We're working on all of that."

Busch has been good throughout his carer at diagnosing a car's performance, so what's different now?

"We have way less time now, right?" Busch said in response to a question from NBC Sports. "I mean ever since COVID. And look at my results. There's just not enough practice for me to dissect and dive into the car.

"That even kind of happened the last year that I had Adam (Stevens as crew chief) where we would unload at racetracks, thinking that all the sim stuff is correct and what you see in sim translates to the racetrack and it doesn't alway do that, but I can help dissect and figure out and get the car and probably a lot of is me, too. I have a feel that I want to feel. When I feel that, I'm way faster than me just having to ride around in a car that feels like it just came off the truck."

Busch said that the team didn't have a sim program for Iowa because of how late the track's partial repave was completed. It was finished a few days before the May 28 tire test that had Kyle Larson, Christopher Bell and Brad Keselowski.

"We didn't have anything for here at all," Busch said. "So we just came off the test notes that Larson had."

Busch also addressed that with Martin Truex Jr. announcing he will no longer run full-time after this season the notion about ever returning to Joe Gibbs Racing.

"I would say anything's possible, always," Busch said Saturday. "Certainly, if I was welcomed, I would go back. If Hendrick welcomed me back, I would go back, but right now I'm at RCR with my group of guys and the deal that I have right now in place, so we're trying to work and build this program and make RCR great again."

Asked if he would be back at Richard Childress Racing in 2025, Busch said "correct."