In NASCAR, reality is that only the present matters

Remember Kyle Busch?

Guy won eight Sprint Cup races, more than any other driver this year. Led the series points for 17 consecutive weeks. Was featured in national magazines as the man to beat for the Chase title. Has had as good a season as anyone in NASCAR, with 20 victories in the sport's three top series combined. And he's been all but forgotten, thanks to three consecutive weeks of mechanical problems that derailed his championship hopes, and turned him into just another bystander watching Jimmie Johnson march to a third consecutive crown. For a while, there was a chance that the driver who had dominated the first two-thirds of this season wouldn't even be one of 10 invited to the year-end awards ceremony in New York.

"We're just trying to go as high as we can go," Busch said. "If there's a shot to get to fifth or a shot to get to third, that's all fine. We just try to do every week what we've done all year long, and finish up front."

NASCAR can do that to you. Perhaps no other sport is as unforgiving as this one, which is capable of demoting a competitor from headliner to afterthought in a heartbeat. For Busch, all it took was a busted suspension joint, a leaky engine seal, and poof -- suddenly he's gone from running for a championship to running around in circles.

Remember Jeff Gordon? Cat had one of the best seasons in modern NASCAR history last year, with 30 top-10 finishes. He's had one of the best careers ever, with four championships and 81 race wins. But what have you done for me lately? He's gone winless this season, and he's struggling to adapt to the new car on intermediate tracks. No matter that even in a mediocre year, he can still make the Chase and lead 359 laps. The achievements of last year might as well have happened a decade ago. People want his crew chief fired. They're wondering if having a baby has made him soft. They're whispering about whether the sport has passed him by.

It all makes Jeff Burton seethe. "If anybody believes that Jeff Gordon forgot how to drive, they've lost their mind. If anybody believes that Jeff Gordon still doesn't want to win, they've lost their mind. This thing about being successful is a whole lot more to do with the driver, the team, the whole deal working together than people give credit for," said Burton, who would know. People thought he was finished as a championship contender when he split from Roush Racing. Now he's been in the Chase three years in a row.

"I'd venture to say there's probably about 40 teams that would kill to have the kind of year he's had," Burton said. "They haven't had a terrible year, they just haven't been able to knock some wins off, which obviously is what we're here to do. Jeff Gordon hasn't forgot how to win races, he hasn't forgot how to race. A lot of people are [saying], 'Well, he had a kid.' It's the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life. You had a kid and you don't care anymore? Do you think if you have a kid you just wake up one morning and say, 'Well, I don't care anymore. I've got a child, and I love my child, so I don't need a trophy anymore.' Competitive people don't work like that. That's why when George Foreman retired, he came back. It's why when Michael Jordan retired, he came back. It's because you have it in you. Jeff Gordon didn't wake up the day his baby was born and look at the baby and say, 'Well, my life is all changed now. I don't need to race anymore.' It doesn't work like that." (Continued)