in 1990, Morgan Shepherd did something that, until Monday, had never been achieved by any other driver in Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series history. Shepherd recorded top-10 finishes in each of the first 11 races that season. Ultimately, Shepherd would win a race that season en route to finishing fifth in the overall championship standings.
Kyle Busch has tied Shepherd’s mark after a 10th-place finish in the Gander RV 400 at Dover International Speedway.
Busch’s car suffered from a mishandling condition for much of the race and he even slapped the wall at one point, but by the end of the day the driver of the No. 18 Toyota Camry had worked into the top-10 to make history.
Even with the impressive record, Busch walked away from Dover in disbelief about NASCAR’s new racing package.
“The package sucks,” Busch seethed. “No fucking question about it. It’s terrible. All I can do is bitch about it will fall on deaf ears and we’ll come back with the same thing in the fall.” (credit to Davey Segal — @DaveyCenter — for being in Dover and grabbing this quote)
Busch and numerous others, like Kevin Harvick, felt that the package made the race a parade basically where nobody could pass anyone. In fairness to NASCAR, the top-two finishers (Martin Truex Jr. and Alex Bowman) both drove from the back of the field after their cars failed pre-race inspection to finish in front of everyone else.
Obviously, passing had to be possible or they would not have been there in the end.
