The '08 Nationwide season a lesson in consistency (cont'd)

"Carl is a hell of a racecar driver," Bowyer said. "There's no way of getting around it. You know, I'm damn proud to be able to beat a racecar driver like that and a team and an organization like he's got behind him. It says a lot about ours and the people that surround me.

Kyle Busch

Nationwide Series

2008 Race Winners

Driver	Wins
Kyle Busch	10
Carl Edwards	7
Tony Stewart	5
Denny Hamlin	4
Brad Keselowski	2
Mark Martin	1
Matt Kenseth	1
Clint Bowyer	1
Scott Wimmer	1
Joey Logano	1
Ron Fellows	1
Marcos Ambrose	1

"Carl, he's been a longtime friend from those days, and I think it's a true testament to the stepping stones of NASCAR. We both came from the weekly racing series, went through the regional touring series and he went to the Truck Series. Luckily I got the right phone call [from Childress] and went to the Nationwide Series. It's fun to be able to come back here, what, five, six years later and be able to race each other for championships. It really is fun."

Though Edwards won seven races, his victory total couldn't match that of Busch, who won his 10th race of the season at Texas to tie Ard's record set during his championship run in 1983. As soon as he climbed from his car in Fort Worth, Busch announced plans to donate $100,000 to Ard, who is suffering from Alzheimer's disease and struggling to pay his medical bills.

Busch's 10 wins capped an extremely strong season for Toyota, which culminated in the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Camry winning the owners' championship with four drivers. Tony Stewart, Busch, Denny Hamlin and Joey Logano all won races in the car, with Stewart leading the way with five.

The season wasn't without its speed bumps for the Toyota camp, however. In July, NASCAR amended engine rules for the series, based on dynamometer testing and effectively cut Toyota's horsepower. In August at Michigan, the No. 18 and No. 20 JGR teams were penalized severely for attempting to manipulate the dyno numbers. Nevertheless, with its crew chief and car chief suspended indefinitely by NASCAR, the No. 20 Camry still managed to win the owners' championship by 12 points on the No. 2.

Despite competing in only 19 of 35 races, Landon Cassill won the rookie of the year award on the strength of five top-10 finishes.

But the spotlight was on Bowyer, who won his first major NASCAR title. It wasn't until the sixth race of the season, a non-companion event at Nashville, that Bowyer took the championship lead for the first time. It was an advantage he would hold for the rest of the season.

• Tony Stewart won the season-opening race at Daytona then repeated his trip to Victory Lane in the second race at Auto Club Speedway. It was just the third time in Nationwide Series history a driver had won the first two races of the season (Dale Earnhardt in 1986 and Chad Little in 1995).

• Denny Hamlin won at Richmond, scoring the fifth consecutive victory for Joe Gibbs Racing. It was the first time in the history of the Nationwide Series that an owner posted five consecutive wins. Roush Fenway Racing recorded four consecutive victories in 2000 (Rockingham through Darlington) with Mark Martin winning Rockingham, Atlanta and Darlington (in the No. 60) and Jeff Burton winning Las Vegas (in the No. 9). Three different drivers registered victories for JGR during the streak: Kyle Busch (Texas and Phoenix in the No. 18 and Mexico City in the No. 20), Tony Stewart (Talladega in the No. 20) and Hamlin (Richmond in the No. 20). Stewart extended the Gibbs streak to six races with his victory at Darlington (the fourth consecutive for the No. 20).

Carl Edwards

Nationwide Series

2008 Season Bests

Wins	Kyle Busch (10)
Top-fives	Carl Edwards (19)
Top-10s	Clint Bowyer (29)
Poles	Two drivers (4)
Laps Led	Kyle Busch (1,933)
LL Finishes	Clint Bowyer (31)
Avg. Start	Carl Edwards (8.0)
Avg. Finish	Clint Bowyer (8.2)

• Joey Logano won at Kentucky and became the youngest winner in series history at 18 years, 21 days.

• JGR registered its 14th victory of the season with Busch's win at O'Reilly Raceway Park. That broke a tie with Richard Childress Racing for the most by a car owner (2007).

• James Hylton competed in the second Daytona race, his first Nationwide Series race since June 24, 2006. At 72 years, 313 days old, he extended his record as the oldest competitor in any of NASCAR's three national series.

• Kyle Busch won the O'Reilly Challenge at Texas Motor Speedway, tying the all-time record for wins in a season held by Sam Ard (10 in 1983).

• Joe Gibbs Racing set the mark for the most owner wins in a Nationwide Series season with 19, breaking the record set by Richard Childress Racing. Both JGR cars won races this season (No. 20 -- nine; No. 18 -- 10) and both won with multiple drivers (No. 20: Tony Stewart -- five, Denny Hamlin -- two, Kyle Busch and Joey Logano -- one each; No. 18: Kyle Busch -- eight, Denny Hamlin -- two). Childress set the mark last year with 13 wins among three drivers in three cars.

• Kyle Busch won 10 races this season, in three different cars, for two different owners. Busch drove four different cars for three different owners: Joe Gibbs (No. 18, 20), Todd Braun (No. 32) and Eddie D'Hondt (No. 92). He has won for Gibbs and Braun and finished second at Watkins Glen for D'Hondt. Busch also won with five different crew chiefs: Jason Ratcliff, Doug Hewitt and Joel Weidman (No. 18), Dave Rogers (No. 20) and Todd Lohse (No. 32).

• Joey Logano posted his first career pole in qualifying for Nashville. Brad Keselowski followed by winning his first career race. It was the 29th time in series history that a first-time pole and first-time race winner occurred in the same event. Only five times has the same driver posted both a first pole and first victory in the same event.

• Joey Logano posted his second series pole and then won at Kentucky -- registering his first career win in just his third Nationwide Series race. He became the 19th driver to score his first victory within his first three series races. Eight of the other 18 drivers posted their first series win in 1982, the first year for the series, and 14 did so within the first three years of the series. Logano joined Derrike Cope (1994 -- third race), Ron Fellows (1998 -- second race) and Kurt Busch (2006 -- first race) as the only drivers to achieve their first win within their first three races since 1987.

• Morgan Shepherd finished on the lead lap at Talladega, his first time in a Nationwide Series race since Rockingham on Oct. 23, 1999. His last lead-lap finish in any of the three major NASCAR series was in the season opener for the Truck Series at Daytona on Feb. 16, 2001.

• Colin Braun won the pole at Mexico City in his third series start; Joey Logano won the pole at Nashville -- his second series start.

• Mark Green qualified fourth at Richmond -- his best start since he rolled off fifth at Rockingham in October 1998.

• Steve Wallace and David Stremme finished fifth and sixth, respectively, at Richmond -- the first time two Rusty Wallace Racing drivers have posted top 10s in the same race. They repeated the performance at Darlington the following week.

• Bobby Hillin Jr. finished 36th at Kansas, his first race on a NASCAR national series since he competed in a Cup race at Bristol on Aug. 26, 2000.

• James Buescher became the third-youngest driver to win a pole in the Nationwide Series with his pole at Memphis. At 18 years, seven months and 29 days he posted the fifth-youngest pole winner age. Casey Atwood and Joey Logano posted poles twice each at a younger age.