South Point champ Kurt Busch resigned to racing for pride

It wasn’t exactly like going from hero to zero. But going from 12th in the playoff standings to 19th in the cutoff race at Bristol, Tennessee, last Saturday night left Kurt Busch with zero chance to win his second NASCAR Cup Series championship.

“That was not a championship-type effort. We missed it big time,” said the reigning South Point 400 champion from Las Vegas about having to defend his title as one of those on the outside looking in on the playoff Round of 12.

The 43-year-old veteran, who recently announced he’ll be joining the 23XI Racing team co-owned by Michael Jordan in 2022, started the playoffs with a solid sixth place at Darlington before suffering a flat tire, crashing and finishing 37th in the second Round of 16 race at Richmond.

“We had bad luck and we have no shot at a championship this year. We have to race for pride, dignity and honor for the next few weeks,” conceded the driver of Chip Ganassi Racing’s No. 1 Chevrolet. “That’s not the way we wanted this to go.”

Two regular-season wins and a bigger accumulation of playoff points gave younger brother Kyle more room for error after crashing out at Darlington. The two-time Cup Series champion finished 21st at Bristol but advanced to the second round with a little room to spare heading into the playoff race on his hometown track.

“I used to put more stress on myself to win there, no doubt,” said the driver of the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, who will be seeking his first Cup Series victory at LVMS since 2009. “We want to win every single one of them. That’s a fact. When you come into your hometown — and we watched this place get built from nothing — it means that extra more to you.”

Performing a victory burnout in front of their hometown supporters also would be a dream come true for Las Vegas Xfinity Series drivers Noah Gragson and Riley Herbst and part-time participant Matt Jaskol.

Gragson caught fire recently after it was announced he would return for a fourth Xfinity season in the No. 9 JR Motorsports Camaro, winning his first two races of 2021 in back-to-back starts at Darlington and Richmond.

“We didn’t change anything really, just been kind of sticking to our plan and doing what we kind of know how to do,” said the 23-year-old, who has 11 top 10 finishes in his past 13 races and will start the Xfinity playoffs as the No. 4 seed behind Austin Cindric, AJ Allmendinger and teammate Justin Allgaier.

Herbst claimed one of the last playoff spots with a season-best third-place finish at the wild regular-season finale at Bristol that saw winner Allmendinger and runner-up Cindric cross the finish line sideways.

“I think we have to execute behind the steering wheel, no mistakes on pit road and stop being too eager and driving too aggressively,” Herbst said about what it might take at LVMS to get his first Xfinity win.

Jaskol will be making LVMS debut behind the wheel of the No. 66 MBM Motorsports entry.

“Took longer than expected but, hey, things don’t always happen in the time frame you expect,” said the 36-year-old driver about resurrecting his career in big-time motorsports.

Contact Ron Kantowski at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow @ronkantowski on Twitter.