Can Kyle Busch’s Auto Club dominance continue in Next Gen?

Whenever NASCAR rolls into Auto Club Speedway, Kyle Busch is expected to contend for the win.

That’s been a theme throughout his career. The Las Vegas native earned his first Cup Series victory there as a rookie in 2005 and notched his 200th career win across NASCAR’s three national series in March 2019.

In all, Busch leads all active Cup drivers with four wins at the 2-mile oval coupled with six wins in the Xfinity Series and a 2-for-2 record in the Camping World Truck series.

But perhaps most jarring is this stat: Busch has amassed seven top-three finishes in his last nine Cup starts in Fontana, a 77.8% podium rate that includes three wins and eight top 10s in a span that dates back to 2011. Notably, Busch went to victory lane in 2013, the last time a new car was introduced to the Cup Series with the sport’s transition to the Gen 6.

“I really enjoy the 2-mile track. I love going out to California,” Busch said in a press release. “It’s a driver’s track and it’s aged over time. The surface has been ground, but I don’t think it’s been paved since it was first built back in 1997. It’s been a long time with the place being aged, and it’s aged well. You can run all over it. Typically, recently you run up around the wall in the turns, but you can still move around a bit.”

This time might be a little different. Sunday’s Wise Power 400 marks the first time the Next Gen car will see Auto Club Speedway in a competitive setting. And with such rough, bumpy and abrasive asphalt, how the new vehicles respond will be analyzed by drivers all weekend.

“I think the biggest thing with getting familiar with the new car is just understanding its little things that it likes and it doesn’t like, whether it’s setup-wise or even driving-wise,”