Kyle Busch is Only Human After All.
By: Drew Hierwarter
The cover of the current issue of Dick Berggren’s “Speedway Illustrated” magazine touts Kyle Busch as “NASCAR’s Hottest Driver”. And his record so far this season certainly bears that out. Driving in all three of NASCAR’s top racing divisions, Busch has earned a total of ten wins and, for a brief time, he led the points in all three. Something that had never been done before. He has won at least one race in every division for the last four years, something only two others have ever done. And he has led more laps already this year than most drivers lead in an entire season. Most of the racing media is calling this 23 year old from Las Vegas the most talented driver to come into NASCAR since Jeff Gordon.
This past weekend, Kyle Busch had a plan. He would run a Craftsman Truck Series race on Friday night, a Nationwide Series race on Saturday night, and his regular Sprint Cup Series duties on Sunday. Normally this is not that unusual a task as NASCAR often schedules all three at the same track in a single weekend. What made this plan so ambitious was that each race on this particular weekend was being held not only at a different track, but each of those three tracks was in a different state. The truck race was in
Each day, after Sprint Cup practice was over, Kyle would jump on an airplane and fly to the next venue, race that night, and then fly back to Pocono. Many were anticipating that the grind would be too much, but many more were predicting that it was entirely possible that Busch would win all three races. And that was something else that had never been done before. Well, it didn’t quite work out that way and it proved that Kyle Busch is only human after all.
The plan started out well enough Friday night at Texas Motor Speedway. Busch started the Craftsman Truck race from the back of the pack, raced well and finished second to Ron Hornaday. The trifecta was already out of the equation but second was a good showing. Saturday in Nashville however did not go so well. Again Busch had to start from the back of the field and was running well when some tire trouble relegated him to a 20th place finish, three laps behind first time Nationwide winner, Brad Keselowski. Then it was back on an airplane and back to Pocono on Sunday for Kyle’s regular day job, 500 miles in a Sprint Cup car.
Once again he would start from the back of the pack. He was running well when a mistake by either Busch himself, or his spotter, depending on whom you ask, caused him to come into contact with Jamie McMurray as the two raced out of turn three. The resulting damage sent Busch to the garage for repairs. Eighty one laps later, he returned to the race track and soldiered on to finish 43rd while a resurgent Kasey Kahne celebrated in victory lane.
Was the task of running three races, on three different race tracks, in three different states too much for Kyle Busch? Did fatigue cause the mistake that led to his worst finish of the year? Only Kyle Busch can answer these questions but one has to wonder if things would’ve been any different if he had just concentrated on his Sprint Cup deal. Busch is a racer who loves nothing better than to be driving race cars. He is in the enviable position right now to have a tremendous amount of resources at his disposal. The opportunity to try to make history by winning all three races in a single weekend presented itself, and he took his shot. That it wasn’t entirely successful certainly wasn’t from lack of trying.