July 25, 2009
By Nick Blake
Another race, another dominant performance by Kyle Busch. Who else? Busch raced on to his sixth win of 19 races this season in the Nationwide Series and extended his point lead to 212 points over Carl Edwards. By now we’ve all figured out that Joe Gibbs Racing is on a roll since switching over to Toyota last season, but the repeated action of Busch and teammate Joey Logano winning has fans and other drivers scratching their heads.
Wait, let me rephrase that. Kyle Busch winning multiple times and dominating races has drivers hanging their heads.
Take Reed Sorenson for an example. Struggling in the Cup Series and looking for success, he jumped at the opportunity to drive for Braun Racing in a chance for a win at Gateway, a track that he’s won twice, and those two wins are two of only three for Reed in NASCAR Nationwide Series competition, period. (The other coming in a Nationwide race at Nashville in 2005.) For him to pull off a win would have been a refresher, much needed for his career, and the Nationwide Series as well. And with the often uncertain future surrounding Richard Petty Motorsports, if the sponsorship isn’t there for Reed next season, he could be out of a ride. So to finish second to Kyle Busch this past Saturday night was a great showing for his first Nationwide race of the season, but it was also a great disappointment because he came only one position away from victory. He showed a bit of that disappointment in his post race interview, and that’s what prompted me to write this article.
Reed is just one of the many drivers that I believe should either run for the Nationwide championship, or just run more Nationwide races in general. A lot of the Sprint Cup drivers that are having a bad year, or have struggled in years past could put the Nationwide, or even the Camping World Truck Series to good use as a pick-me-up for their slumping Cup seasons. But nope. It’s used by the drivers that are already on top of their game. Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards are the two biggest examples, making a mockery of the Nationwide Series standings, despite Carl being down 212 points.
Kyle, despite being 9th in the Sprint Cup Series standings, has three wins this season. Carl has no wins, but is in good shape to make the Chase, running 6th in the standings. They don’t need to run in the Nationwide Series. If Cup guys want to run in the Nationwide Series, that’s fine, but there are other guys that should consider running 15-20 races to a full season. Here are a few besides Kevin Harvick, David Ragan and the aforementioned Reed Sorenson that I’d like to see run in Nationwide more.
Casey Mears. The slumping Mears has not seen Victory Lane in NASCAR's Cup Series since the 2007 Coca-Cola 600, which he won driving for Hendrick Motorsports. Since then, he was forced out the seat after ‘08 by Mark Martin, and isn’t doing much better at Richard Childress Racing while Martin has raced on to four wins this season in the ride Casey had last year. Casey has one Nationwide win to his credit, in 2006 at Chicagoland driving for Chip Ganassi Racing. In 2007, he showed strong potential driving a partial schedule for Hendrick in the #24 National Guard Chevy. In 19 starts, he finished in the Top Ten 14 times, with 7 Top Fives. That’s actually two less Top Tens than what Kyle Busch has this season through 19 races. Casey didn’t win that season, but his strong Nationwide results supported a solid Cup season, in which he finished 15th. Since then, he has made zero Nationwide starts, and in Cup just can’t seem to reach the same height of his Coca-Cola 600 triumph. He was 20th in last season’s standings. He runs 22nd this season.
Jamie McMurrary. McMurrary has just two wins in Sprint Cup competition, and his season standings since 2003 have been, 13th, 11th, 12th, 25th, 17th, and 16th. This season fits in with the rest of them; he currently sits 19, and will miss yet another Chase. (Note, the Chase expanded to 12 from 10 after 2006.) He’s another one that has not raced in Nationwide all season, and boasts 7 wins in that series. Last season, he raced 11 times and achieved 6 Top Tens, but no wins. He is the only Cup driver at Roush Fenway that has not won a Nationwide race with the organization. In fact, Biffle, Kenseth, Ragan and Edwards have all won a Nationwide race……this season. Jamie hasn’t even made a start.
David Stremme. Last season Stremme brought a lot of credibility to Rusty Wallace Inc. driving it’s brand new second team as a teammate to Steven Wallace. He came close to that oh so elusive first win, he finished second twice. The experience and confidence he gained by returning to the Nationwide series after two tough seasons in Cup gave him hope that he could still perform at NASCAR’s highest level. However, since signing with Penske Racing, he’s struggled for results this season, and sits a beyond disappointing 32nd in drivers points. He could not workout a return to RWI, and has not run a single Nationwide race all season. The confidence that was there has evaporated from the #12 team, the same team that won last year’s Daytona 500. With Justin Allgaier rising fast, time may be running out for Stremme to start showing his true potential.
Feel free to respond to me with any other driver that should use the Nationwide or Truck Series as a confidence booster…..rather than their personal playground.
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