October 21, 2008
By Loren Dorrell
“It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.”
I have no idea if Kyle Busch has ever read Dickens, but you can bet he can explain the opening quote even if he’s never heard it before. If there has been a bigger roller-coaster ride in NASCAR history, I certainly can’t find it. And you can bet that Kyle is wishing that this season would just hurry the heck up and get over with already.
Joe Gibbs Racing and Kyle Busch dominated both the Sprint and Nationwide series’ almost from the drop of the first checkered flag at Daytona. Between them both, JGR racked up nearly twenty victories, most of them by Kyle; and Rowdy won 8 Sprint cup races alone. Kyle Busch spent more time on top of the points standings this year than any other driver in the series, and was the odds-on favorite to win the Sprint Cup. Ask anyone who was even remotely familiar with the sport, and they were likely to tell you that, like it or not, we were gonna be stuck with Kyle as champion and there didn’t seem like anything anyone could do about it.
Oh, how the blogs burned! Oh, how the fans ranted and raved on every fan board on the internet! The world was coming to an end: Toyota was going to win the NASCAR championship, why, they aren’t even an AMERICAN car! Oh, there was some solace when JGR got slammed for cheating in the Nationwide Series, and there was the “Toyota” rule that sought to reign in the run-away horsepower the Camrys were supposed to have. But even that wasn’t enough to stop the Busch Express as it headed for the station so far ahead of everyone else it needed a new zip code. And then suddenly, shockingly, it hit a brick wall and derailed.
Richmond, 9-7-08: Busch is on top of the leader board, seeded first for the Race for the Sprint Cup with eight victories. Kyle wins the pole and finishes fifteenth in the final “regular season” race. The #18 Camry is poised to win Joe Gibbs Racing yet another NASCAR championship.
Loudon, 9-14-08: Busch wins the pole and leads the first lap, but by lap 4 is starting to lose positions. Falls to ninth with a bad handling car; reports a problem with the sway bar on lap 19. Pits early on the lap 35 competition yellow, has to start at the tail-end of the longest line. Lap 39: back on pit road, gets 2 penalties and goes two laps down. Lap 43: Busch is scored 43rd and one lap down, but is losing ground fast. Lap 91: eight laps down. His team never finds the handle and he finishes 34th, 12 laps down; and slips from first to eighth in the standings.
Dover, 9-21-08: Busch starts eleventh at the Monster Mile, and is running in the top 15 when the car starts smoking (lap 141), five laps later he drops to the back of the pack with oil in the cockpit. Lap 164: Kyle is in 22nd, and still smoking; may be a valve. Lap 172: the engine finally blows and the #18 finishes dead last. Kyle drops to 12th in the Chase standings, 193 points back.
Kansas, 9-28-08: Busch starts 27th and finishes 28th, one lap down; is as far back as 36th at one point. The team has engine problems, again. Kyle is now 311 points back.
Talladega, 10-5-08: The #18 car finally has a good day, avoiding wrecks and major problems to finish 15th after starting 37th. He moves up one spot, but is still 311 points out of first.
Charlotte, 10-11-08: Kyle has another good day and seems to be back on track with a 4th place finish at Lowe’s; but it may be a case of too little too late: he moves up to 9th in the Chase but is 326 points behind Jimmie Johnson.
Martinsville, 10-19-08: And down the coaster again! Busch starts 9th but finishes 29th and 3 laps down. First he has brake issues, then blows a tire and wrecks. To and insult to injury, NASCAR dings him 2 laps for intentionally bringing out a yellow. He drops back to 12th, 445 points behind the #48. And in case you need any more signs that the party’s over, Jimmie Johnson wins at the Great Paper Clip – again.
So it looks as though ol’ Rowdy has been run over by his own Karma; maybe what goes around DOES come around. If I were the superstitious type, I’d have to say that all the bad feelings Kyle generated amongst both the fans and his fellow drivers has come back to bite him on the gluteus maxima, and at the worst possible moment. To say he was “…overdrawn at the luck bank…” (credit to Darrell Waltrip), is an understatement; if luck were money, Kyle would be doing 2 to 5 in the local hoosegow. I don’t know if Murphy made up a set of laws for stock car racers, but if he did, Kyle Busch would be this year’s poster boy.
Still, it wasn’t all bad. For 26 races, he was the baddest cat on the block and he needs to keep that in the back of his head while the season winds down. My advice to Kyle is to just keep on plugging away: there are only four races left and if he gets a little lucky, he might make the top ten after Homestead. Put this year behind you Kyle; concentrate on getting to 2009 and a fresh start at Daytona. Remember: Tony Stewart is leaving for his own team next year, and with Joey Logano coming in you just might be the alpha dog at JGR for a change. Start making a list. Maybe Santa will leave you a little something special for 2009.
The thoughts and ideas expressed by this writer or any other writer on Insider Racing News, are not necessarily the views of the staff and/or management of IRN.
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