NASCAR: Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson defend Kyle Busch after Fontana win

Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson came to Kyle Busch’s defense after Busch won Sunday night’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Fontana.

On Sunday night, 37-year-old Kyle Busch made history in multiple different ways.

First, he became the first NASCAR Cup Series driver to ever win a race in 19 consecutive seasons, passing Richard Petty, who had 18, on the all-time leaderboard.

Second, he won what is going to be the final race in Fontana Speedway’s history. As of right now, NASCAR has vague plans to shut down the track and build a new one in its place, but nothing has been firmly announced and the general consensus is that there wouldn’t even be anything ready anyway until 2025 or later.

Busch’s 61st career win and fifth at Fontana came in just his second start with Richard Childress Racing. He left Joe Gibbs Racing at the conclusion of the 2022 season and had many doubters around the industry that wondered if he was finished with his winning ways.

On Sunday, he silenced all of the naysayers.

NASCAR: Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson demand some respect be put on Kyle Busch’s name

While Busch burned the place to the ground (not actually, just doing a cool burnout), the Fox Sports pit reporters interviewed a few of the runner ups to get their thoughts on how their evenings went.

Chase Elliott, who finished second and is one of the most popular NASCAR drivers on the circuit and the 2020 Cup Series champion, was one of the drivers interviewed in the post-race happenings.

He was asked by reporters if he’s surprised to see Busch make it to victory lane with his new ride.

"Why is anyone surprised by this? Kyle Busch is one of the best NASCAR drivers there’s ever been, that didn’t change overnight. Whoever thought he couldn’t get it done tonight needs to rethink their NASCAR knowledge."

Kyle Larson, the 2021 Cup Series champion, echoed Elliott’s sentiment and agreed that there is absolutely no surprise whatsoever to him that Busch was able to pull this off.

There’s little doubt that Busch has what it takes to take his No. 8 RCR car to victory lane, despite the fact that his new team could be viewed as a slight “downgrade” from the car he drove for JGR.