Kyle Busch says Tony Stewart faces 'tall order' with injury return

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Kyle Busch believes Tony Stewart has a “taller order” in returning from injury to salvage his season than Busch did last year.

The defending Sprint Cup Series champion told USA TODAY Sports that Stewart’s injury — a broken back — is a “bigger deal” compared to the broken leg and foot Busch suffered at Daytona International Speedway a year ago.

But Busch expressed some optimism for the three-time champion.

“He’s (come back from injury) once, he can do it again — he will do it again,” Busch said. “And I hope when he comes back, he will be a force to be reckoned with.”

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The Busch and Stewart comparisons will be frequent this season because nothing like the situation had occurred in NASCAR history until 2015. Under the old points system, a driver who missed a significant portion of the season would have no chance at making the Chase for the Sprint Cup playoff.

But due to the medical waiver rule — and NASCAR’s interpretation of it, which allowed Busch to be playoff-eligible despite missing 11 races — there’s still hope for Stewart in his final season.

Depending on when Stewart returns, he could receive a medical waiver, win a race and race his way into the top 30 in points. That would put him in the Chase.

The difference between the two drivers, however, is how well they'd been running before the injuries.

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In the year before he got hurt, Busch had an average finish of 17.6 and finished 10th in the standings. Last year, Stewart had an average finish of 24.8 and finished 28th in the standings.

“In my situation, I don’t feel like I’d struggled as bad as Tony has the last couple of years,” Busch said. “So Tony was definitely going to need part of the season to get used to working with a new crew chief and getting his program rebuilt, and now he doesn’t have that time.

“So when he comes back, he’d better be ready to go and the team had better be ready to go. I feel like when I missed the races I missed, it made (crew chief) Adam (Stevens) better and it made the team better because they knew they had to be better with the drivers they had.”

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