Lack of Cup title doesn't diminish Busch's season

He bounded into the interview room the picture of enthusiasm, a wide and supremely confident smile etched upon his face. While Kyle Busch was taking nothing for granted -- no racecar driver does -- he was clearly pleased with himself, and with good reason. He had just won at Watkins Glen International to score his eighth Sprint Cup victory in a season that was barely half over. He had made a clean sweep of the year's road courses. He was riding the wave, bolstered by a huge lead in championship points, asserting himself more and more as the clear favorite for the title. No one had any inkling that it would come to an end so soon.

That August afternoon in New York was the last time Busch won a race in NASCAR's premier series. Five weeks later, thanks to the Chase format and the first of what would become a spate of mechanical difficulties, his points lead would be gone. Now, with two just two races remaining and Jimmie Johnson trying to hold off Carl Edwards for the championship, the driver who dominated the first two-thirds of the season is 10th in points and a complete afterthought. Long gone are those pre-Chase days when the title was considered a three-man race.

"It's a shame for that race team and for Kyle," said Denny Hamlin, Busch's teammate at Joe Gibbs Racing. "They're going to be struggling to make it to New York. After the season that they've had, they deserve something, I truly believe that. I don't know if you have a regular-season champion or what have you. I definitely think they deserve to have something for all the effort and all the wins they've had this year."

But there won't be a trophy, maybe not even a seat at the postseason awards banquet in New York City -- only the top 10 go, and right now Busch is right on the number, just three points out of 12th. Yet even with all that, when the 2008 campaign is over, only two Sprint Cup competitors should merit serious consideration for any driver of the year awards. One is whomever wins the series title. And the other is Kyle Busch.

No, he's not going to win the championship -- on the Sprint Cup circuit, or on any other NASCAR circuit, for that matter. His Chase fortunes, which have included a broken suspension joint, a failed engine part and an engine pressure issue, have been nothing short of disastrous. Even he surely considers this year one glorious opportunity that frustratingly got away. But make no mistake about it -- Busch's season, when viewed in its totality, has been nothing short of spectacular. And the lack of a Sprint Cup title does nothing to diminish that.

In all honestly, everyone has become a little too caught up in this all-or-nothing championship quest, the product of a Chase format that turns the title into something of a free-for-all, and expectations that make anything from second place on down look like a failure. Jeff Gordon had one of the best seasons in modern NASCAR history last year, with an amazing 30 top-10 finishes, but it all seemed for naught because Johnson's unconscious finishing kick whisked away the crown. We could all learn a little something from baseball's Tampa Bay Rays or college basketball's Davidson Wildcats, both of whom proved that a large degree of victory can be achieved even in defeat. Hardcore types like to mock drivers who occasionally find satisfaction in finishing second. Well, maybe that's because sometimes finishing second is quite an accomplishment. (Continued)