NASCAR star Kyle Busch admits Cup Series failure

NASCAR star Kyle Busch has admitted he's so far failed to reach his Cup Series goal of taking his win tally into the 70s.

The all-time Cup Series win list is once again a topical discussion after Denny Hamlin's victory at Las Vegas earlier this month saw him claim 10th spot outright and bump Kevin Harvick down to 11th.

In terms of drivers that Hamlin could potentially overtake, Busch himself is next up in ninth spot with 63 wins, with Hamlin needing just two more wins to match his former teammate.

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Busch on Hamlin and Cup Series win list

Given that Busch is approaching the unwanted record of going 100 Cup races without a victory, the two-time champion believes that Hamlin will overtake him at some point in 2026.

“Yeah I know, I’ve seen the publications for all that,” Busch told reporter Dalton Hopkins at Darlington. “And if I had any way of being able to rebut it, I certainly would. But I don't.

“He'll top it this year, I bet, and, you know, hopefully I get some more opportunities in the future to be able to do something with that.

“But otherwise yeah, I'm at 63, and he'll soon eclipse it.”

Busch has failed to achieve Cup Series win goal

Busch went on to reveal that he wasn't bothered about being passed by Hamlin, although he did admit that he has failed to achieve the ambitious goal he had set himself in terms of Cup Series victories.

“You as a driver, you want to continue to add to your total and just keep rising and rising and Rising, right?” Busch explained.

“And I don't feel like I've been able to rise as high as I wanted to. I was hoping to get into the 70s-75 range, and that was sort of my goal that I had set, and we've stalled out at 63. So that’s my own problem.

"Not that Denny shouldn't be successful in overachieving, he's obviously a great race car driver and has many years and opportunities to be able to get to where he's at, so when he does get there, then you know, he takes that spot.”