Kyle Busch anxious to "get our rhythm going" this season

Busch appeared set for a top-five finish last week at Las Vegas when he and Joey Logano got tangled up on the last lap, which led to a post-race fight on pit road and left Busch with a 22nd-place finish.

The problem? In his first two races of the 2017 season, Busch had finished 38th and 16th.

Only twice before in his 12-plus year Cup series career has Busch failed to score a top-10 finish in the season’s first three races – 2010 (when his highest finish was 14th) and 2015 (when he missed the first three races due to injury).

Right now, he sits a woeful 19th in the series standings.

“All in all just looking forward to being able to get a good run, get a good solid run here,” Busch said after qualifying at Phoenix on Friday. “We haven’t had one yet this year. We need one. And just get our rhythm going.”

A little bit off

Even qualifying got off to a rough start for Busch.

Just as he was start his lap at the beginning of Round 2 of knockout qualifying, NASCAR displayed the red flag for debris in Turn 1. His initial lap did not count.

Busch did manage to get out a second time later in the session and advance to the final round and he will start ninth in Sunday’s race at Phoenix.

“Our Camry was just a little off today. Not bad. I feel like there’s some moments there that we can work on and get a little bit better and get it to where we need it for race trim obviously,” he said.

“Qualifying trim we were the top JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing) car I guess. I think (Erik) Jones beat us out. We still kind of call them the Toyota guys so he beat us out there a little bit there. He’s in eighth. But overall a good run, a strong run for us here today.

“Glad to make it to the final round. It wasn’t looking pretty for us there for a minute.”