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DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Three hundred and fifty-five days. Give or take a week, perhaps.
That's how long losing the Daytona 500 sticks with you, according to Kurt Busch.
And Busch, driver of the No. 41 Ford for Stewart-Haas Racing, should know.
Three times Busch has been in position to win the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season-opening event. Three times he has been denied, taking the checkered flag before everyone else except for the race winner.
Second is a lonely place.
Others have finished second in the 500-mile race held annually here at Daytona International Speedway more often than Busch. NASCAR Hall of Fame member Dale Earnhardt finished second five times. Fellow Hall cohort Cale Yarborough did it four times.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. has been runner up four times, as well.
But the sting of a second-place finish in the season's biggest event isn't as painful when there are Daytona 500 trophies in the trophy case, and that's the case for the Earnhardts, Yarborough and a host of others.
For Busch, the lack of a Harley J. Earl trophy, presented to the Daytona 500 victor, is the lone omission on an otherwise solid resume. He's a former series champion (2004), and enters the 2017 season with 28 wins over a 17-year career.
This year's race, scheduled for Sunday (2 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) will be his 16th attempt at being known as a Daytona 500 champion.
"You go with all the optimism you can to win it," Busch said. "You apply all the knowledge from years past being so close to try to win it. (But) it sticks with you."
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Restrictor-plate races contested at Daytona and Talladega Superspeedway haven't been kind to Busch, although he did win an IROC race at Talladega in 2003 en route to the championship for that four-race series. He's also won the non-points "The Clash" at Daytona as well as one of the Can-Am Duel qualifying races that determine the bulk of the lineup for the 500.
"But both those (Clash and Can-Am) wins were when we were doing the tandem (draft)," Busch said of the NASCAR victories. "I mastered the tandem really well I felt like."
What he's yet to master, he said "is the aggressive blocking, making the car as wide as it can be at the end of the race to hold that position.
"I was in position, I thought, to win the April race at Talladega last year and Brad (Keselowski) got around me at the end. I made a mistake. Coming to the line here in July running second, third, behind Brad. Joey (Logano, Keselowski’s teammate) is behind me pushing and I got spun coming to the line.
"So many close opportunities and yet nothing to show for it as far as a points win. I just have to be more aggressive and strategic in blocking at the end."
Perfect planning
The 2008 Daytona 500, the 50th annual event, wasn't rain-shortened nor did it go into overtime. It was 200 laps, 500 miles and ended with a three-lap shootout thanks to a late caution for an incident involving Casey Mears.
When the green flag waved for the final restart, Busch was sixth, outside of Earnhardt Jr. and trailing Jeff Burton, Kyle Busch Tony Stewart and Ryan Newman. Newman pushed Stewart to the lead and with two to go, it was Stewart, Newman and Kurt Busch.
When Stewart dropped low exiting Turn 2 to pick up the fast-closing Kyle Busch and others on the inside, Kurt Busch was able to push Newman, his teammate at Team Penske, into the lead.
"As I settled off the banking … and went on to the straightaway, I had this run and it timed out perfect to catch Newman," Busch said. "And I was like, 'Alright, I'm going to push him through (turns) 3 and 4, maybe those (guys) will catch us by the time we come off 4 and they can push me and then I'll worry about how to win.'
But help never arrived. Newman streaked across the finish line under the lights with Busch .092 second behind.
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"It was the mile-per-hour that we had on the others," he said of the Penske tandem. "We entered Turn 3 doing 208 mph and the field was stuck at 200. We had such a mph difference that nobody was going to catch us by the time we got back around.
"That one worked out as far as being a Penske team player. It was great to be a part of that 1-2 finish."
It was the first Daytona 500 victory for team owner Roger Penske and the first 1-2 finish for his organization.
"That was when we knew the race started during the day and ended at night," Busch said. "So we went with a night-time setup. I was a lap down during the daytime portion of that race. That was full-on execution to go for nighttime and it turned out perfect.
"What that taught me was you have to have a plan and you have to stick with it. And you hope you're on the cutting edge to be ahead of everybody."