Kurt Busch confirms he’ll return to NASCAR’s Stewart-Haas Racing

During the recent NASCAR Champion’s Week in Las Vegas, Kurt Busch said it was a matter of dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s on a new contract with Stewart-Haas Racing.

The little details are done.

It was announced Tuesday that Busch will return for another season with Stewart-Haas after he and the team agreed to a one-year contract extension. Details of the deal were not disclosed.

“Knowing that SHR is committed to optimum performance, I believe I have everything I need to win races and take home the 2018 Monster Energy Cup,” wrote the 2004 Cup Series and 2017 Daytona 500 champion from Las Vegas on his Twitter account. “I look forward to taking on next year with my team, sponsors and determination. Here’s to 2018!”

This will be the 41-year-old driver’s fifth-season at Stewart-Haas. After winning the big one at Daytona to start 2017 — his only victory of the season — Busch had an up-and-down year, finishing 14th in final points.

“It was fantastic to win the Daytona 500,” Busch told the Review-Journal on Nov. 29. “To settle in with Ford, we didn’t expect to have the balance and aerodynamic issues that we did. Once we started working through that, I thought we were turning a good corner.”

There were flashes of his Daytona form just before the playoffs.

“I felt like we could win the Southern 500, just didn’t close that one out,” said Busch, whose younger brother, Kyle, was edged for the Cup Series championship by Martin Truex Jr. ”Then in the playoffs, we just made little mistakes. Little pit crew things here, little driver mistakes there. We just didn’t quite have the strength we needed to make that strong run.”

Still, Busch said the 2017 season was career-affirming in a way.

“I had been running strong and winning races,” he said. “But when you win the Daytona 500, that’s as big as winning the championship.”

Contact Ron Kantowski at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow @ronkantowski on Twitter.