Turning Point: Is this the real ‘Rowdy’? Will CBell three-peat at Phoenix?

Here’s what’s happening in the world of NASCAR with Circuit of The Americas in the rearview and Phoenix Raceway (Sun., 3:30 p.m. ET, FS1) up next.

THE LINEUP

1️⃣ Is this the version of Kyle Busch we can expect in 2025?

2️⃣ Will Christopher Bell go back-to-back … to-back?

3️⃣ Bell reveals his one weakness at Phoenix Raceway

4️⃣ A brief history of Cup Series trailblazers

5️⃣ Catch the pack — news and notes from around the garage

1. Is this the version of Kyle Busch we can expect?

Kyle Busch, riding a career-long winless streak, has displayed a noticeable uptick in performance through the first month of on-track activity. Will he keep it up and snap the skid, or is it too early to tell?

Kyle Busch finally returned to Victory Lane this past weekend at Circuit of The Americas … to congratulate former protegé Christopher Bell on the win, after the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing driver overtook him in the final laps and rode off to victory.

But what we saw from “Rowdy” in Austin, combined with how the No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet has performed through the first month of racing, has us wondering — is Busch, well, back?

After a 2024 campaign marked by a playoff miss and the worst average finish (18.3) he’s posted since his rookie season (21.0), the two-time Cup Series champion has displayed a noticeable uptick in performance to spark his third season at RCR after a brilliant start in Year 1 and just a whole lot of frustration since. In a young season thus far defined by a handful of top-heavy talented drivers (namely Bell, William Byron, Tyler Reddick and Ryan Blaney), Busch is right there in the mix, with his latest showing of a near-win at COTA reminding everyone why he’s been such a threat over the past two decades.

MORE: Full Phoenix weekend schedule | Cup Series entry list

The Chevrolet-backed organization as a whole carries a new swagger into the year, harkening back to its glory days as a perennial championship contender after shaking up some internal personnel over the offseason to address inconsistencies. It may be paying dividends already.

“Anytime you add more people or new people, you hope it’s for the betterment of your team,” Busch said at Daytona.

We’re three wild-card tracks into a long season, so take it with a grain of salt, but early returns validate this theory: Busch’s No. 8 Chevrolet has apparent speed at disparate venues like COTA’s road course and Atlanta’s superspeedway, subtly suggesting broader competitiveness as we get into the meatier portion of the schedule.

His current ninth-place standing in points — after nearly earning himself a playoff spot this past weekend, had he held on — reflects steadiness absent since his three-win 2023 start. Yet history looms large.

As Busch himself noted, “You’ve got to keep that momentum. Two years ago, when I joined RCR in 2023, we had a good 16 races — I think we won three of the first 16 — and then tallied off after that. You have to keep the strength all year long. You can’t fumble; that’s when these other guys will take advantage of you.”

Phoenix Raceway, site of Sunday’s Shriners Children’s 500, presents both opportunity and uncertainty. Busch owns four wins at the track, including a dominant 2019 near-sweep en route to the title, but he hasn’t led a lap there since that November race. While RCR’s 2025 short-track package remains untested, the ancillary signs are all encouraging.

Christopher Bell is going to do a lot of things behind the wheel of a race car that nobody’s done before.

He has a chance to wow us once again this weekend at Phoenix.

Fresh off back-to-back victories stemming from surviving Atlanta’s drafting chaos and outmaneuvering Kyle Busch and William Byron in COTA’s road-course chess match, the Joe Gibbs Racing star now barrels toward Phoenix Raceway looking for his third in a row — as the defending winner of this race.

No driver has yet to win three consecutive races in the Next Gen era, a reality Chris Buescher, the last to achieve back-to-back wins in 2023, attributes to the sport’s parity.

“It’s harder to consistently keep an advantage,” Buescher explained in a Tuesday teleconference. “You don’t have as clear of an idea when you go to certain race tracks … it’s just harder to consistently keep an advantage over the field.”

ANALYSIS: Bell, No. 20 JGR team aiming to make 2025 their year

But Bell’s Phoenix credentials and recent pace are such that it almost might be the expectation, not the exception, that he gets it done. Last season, he won the spring race after starting outside the top 10, then followed it with a 143-lap domination en route to a top five in November.

Yet Phoenix’s abrasive surface could neutralize Bell’s momentum.

The track’s falloff for the Goodyear option tire — up to two seconds per lap over a green-flag run — rewards drivers who manage degradation, a skill Ryan Blaney, arguably Bell’s biggest competition heading into the weekend based on recent track history, has honed into an art, particularly here.

The Team Penske veteran and 2023 champ have seven consecutive Phoenix top-five finishes. Blaney’s 1,683 laps spent in the top 10 since 2022, paired with an average running position of 5.5 in the last nine races, reveal a driver who could be ready to break through for win No. 1 there.

But Blaney’s not the only one standing in the way of history.

William Byron’s statistical stranglehold adds another layer of complexity for Bell, as the Daytona 500 winner has finished top 10 in 17 consecutive stages at Phoenix; a streak just two shy of the all-time record (19, Martin Truex Jr. at Richmond) and one that the points leader isn’t likely to see snapped this weekend. Byron’s 1,351 laps run in the top five since the Next Gen’s debut (even 368 more than Blaney) shows the caliber of Chevy that crew chief Rudy Fugle is putting under Byron and the No. 24 driver’s talent level to know what to do with it.

History offers Bell both caution and inspiration. The last driver to win three straight races, Kyle Larson in 2021, did so in the Gen-6 car. Still, Bell’s adaptability remains his X-factor. His 11 career wins span every track type (including dirt!) as he gives Larson a run for his money on the “best driver on the planet” moniker. Despite how generous the Next Gen is to the entire field, Bell is one of a small handful of drivers talented enough to find and exploit advantages over the long-haul.

As we’ve seen in this Next Gen era, it truly feels like if a driver gains an inch of an advantage, the field takes it back by Sunday.

The only problem for the field?

Bell might be out in front by a foot.