Birth Date:Hometown: Las Vegas, NV
Team:
Kurt Busch knows what it feels like to hoist the NASCAR Cup Series’
Championship trophy, and the veteran racer from Las Vegas would like to
enjoy that feeling again.
For car owner Chip Ganassi, Busch represented a chance to hoist a Cup
trophy if Busch could recapture that magic that’s carried him to such a
storied career.
Busch, 40, was the rst competitor to win a Championship under
NASCAR’s “Chase” now Playoff format, which debuted in 2004. In
the years since, he has been all over the place, literally and guratively.
However, 2019 was kind to Busch who stopped his 30-race winless
streak, and in the process, joined Jimmy Johnson as the only driver to win
a Cup race in 16 different seasons.
After spending the last three seasons with Stewart-Haas Racing, the road
seems to have become a bit smoother. The winner of 31 Cup races since
moving directly from the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series (NCWTS)
to Winston Cup in 2001 as a 21-year-old, Busch’s exciting 2019 season
would ultimately end in the round of 16.
Busch has been in the Playoff in seven consecutive seasons, and he has now
been to Victory Lane with nine different crew chiefs and four different teams.
In 2020, he looks to build on the foundation he laid with a new team and
new manufacturer.
“Chip Ganassi said to me, ‘Kurt, I want you. I want you, as a Champion,
to come over to this team,’” Busch said in 2018, recalling Ganassi’s sales
pitch to him.
The elder of two Championship-winning brothers joined Kyle Larson on
Ganassi’s stock-car roster. He raced in a Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 as the
manufacturer builds its database, and momentum, after switching from
the Chevrolet SS to the Camaro last season. He raced his brother, Kyle,
falling just short of beating him at Bristol. However, Kurt Busch’s sixth top
10 in the rst eight races got his 2019 season off to a great start.
If you ever questioned these brothers’ competitiveness, Busch
extinguished all doubts after the race.
“That one is tough. I really wanted to beat him. I was going to wreck him,”
Kurt Busch said.
A better-late-than-never contract signing in early December 2017 that put
Busch back behind the wheel at SHR. He waited until December just
two months ahead of the season-opening Daytona 500 to announce his
new deal with Ganassi. He will bring longtime sponsor Monster Energy
along for the ride.
92 THE OFFICIAL NASCAR 2020 PREVIEW & PRESS GUIDE
Busch and Ganassi said their plans were solidied long before
the 2018 season was completed, but Ganassi wanted Busch to
concentrate solely on winning a Championship during his nal races
with Stewart-Haas. Once the season was nished and Joey Logano
was crowned as the newest Champion, Busch and Ganassi nally
made it ofcial.
They had just 10 weeks to get ready for the rst race of the 2019
season, the Advance Auto Parts Clash on Feb. 10 at the Daytona
International Speedway. But for Busch, it will mark the return to a track
where he won the biggest race of the year the 2017 Daytona 500.
The Daytona 500 win gave Busch roughly two-thirds of what has
long been considered NASCAR’s “Triple Crown” no matter how you
congure it between the Daytona 500, Coca-Cola 600, Southern 500
and the relative newcomer, the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis.
Having won the 600, the Series’ longest, most grueling event, in 2010,
he says he’d like to cross the Brickyard and Southern 500 races off the
list as well to complete the sweep.
A Cup Championship is the only missing puzzle piece in Ganassi’s
trophy case. He has nine teams competing in ve different Series.
His greatest success has been in Indy cars, where his teams have
combined to win 11 Championships and ve Indianapolis 500 races.
His sports cars have eight wins in class including six overall victories
at the Rolex 24 At Daytona.
All that’s missing is a NASCAR Cup Series title, but that can all change
in 2020 if Busch can win the ultimate prize once more.
2019 FEATURED DRIVERS
KURT BUSCH
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