Kyle Busch stepped out of his comfort zone, which is behind the wheel of NASCAR stock cars, on Sunday, as he suited up for his debut race in the Nitro Rallycross Series in the event at Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park in Chandler, AZ.
Busch surprised many by making it into the Main Event of the show. In the end, Busch surprised even himself as he slid up to the fourth position as Travis Pastrana took the race win.
“That was a lot of fun,” Busch said after climbing from the car. “As soon as my guys were telling me, ‘P4, good job,’ across the line, I was like, ‘Damn it, it wasn’t third,’ at least be on the podium, you know? A lot of attrition there, I passed two of them, at least, so I feel I fairly got fourth-ish, a couple of guys broke, but it was a good run.”
Busch shared a photo on Twitter of him taking to the air in the No. 51 Zip Recruiter machine:
Gonna flyyyyyy like an eagleeeee @peacockTV | @NitroRallycross pic.twitter.com/huIN2A3nxM
— Kyle Busch (@KyleBusch) November 14, 2021
For those, who didn’t watch the event, here is the footage from the Battle Round, where Kyle Busch went against Scott Speed in the lead up to Sunday’s Main Event:
solid showing for KB and a rowdy jump to top it off ?@scottspeed vs. @KyleBusch pic.twitter.com/mYduQt8XD9
— Nitrocross (@Nitrocross_) November 13, 2021
And here is broadcast footage of Pastrana snagging the victory in the big show:
CHILLS! TP GETS THE WIN ? pic.twitter.com/UJ2CU5GVXs
— Nitrocross (@Nitrocross_) November 14, 2021
Busch, the two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion, definitely did not say no when asked if he would give Nitro Rallycross another shot down the road, and Pastrana was at Martinsville a few weeks ago attempting to recruit other NASCAR drivers to give the series a shot.
Based on conversations in the Playoff Driver Media Bullpen, it appeared Joey Logano was willing to give it a try, but no official announcement has been made on a Nitro Rallycross start for Logano, just yet.
Here are the final results for Sunday’s Nitro Rallycross event at Wild Horse Pass:
- 199 – Travis Pastrana, 5:16.750
- 21 – Timmy Hansen, +2.062 sec.
- 41 – Scott Speed, +5.582 sec.
- 51 – Kyle Busch, +14.160 sec.
- 02 – Cabot Bigham, +16.187 sec.
- 34 – Tanner Foust, +16.597 sec.
- 9 – Kevin Hansen, DNF
- 00 – Steve Arpin, DNF