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Perhaps it’s because I’ve spent the last three decades reporting on NASCAR, but every time I see race fans tweeting or calling into radio shows that Kyle Busch wins too much, I am reminded of a couple other former NASCAR drivers who also “won too much.”
Winning in big league sports is the point of participation. Do it a lot – like the Yankees, the Lakers, the Canadiens … and Richard Petty – and you are a respected dynasty. Or should be.
Back in the 1980-90s, there was a guy named Dale Earnhardt who took it to his NASCAR competition without much obvious concern about whether he was getting cheered or jeered in Victory Lane. Although we remember the late and great seven-time champion in the fondest of ways, when he was racing there were plenty of those who griped about all his Cup trophy hoists (76 of them).
“Anyone but Dale” wasn’t just a homemade banner or something scrawled on the side of car windows at race tracks. It was a boisterous and unmistakable sub-movement that permeated tracks and camping grounds. You were with Dale or you were against Dale.
But you couldn’t deny Dale. He was Legendary with a capital L.
It may be premature to give 32-year-old Kyle Busch that L yet, but he sure is making a good case that it will be how he’s ultimately regarded despite the boos and jeers he gets after winning.
Like he got after sweeping all three national series races at Bristol Motor Speedway last weekend – for the second time in his career there. No one has ever earned a three-race sweep anywhere else – even once.
Another of Busch’s contemporaries, seven-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson, receives similar receptions during driver introductions, and like Busch will be, Johnson is certainly considered among the sport’s greatest ever.
Although Busch has “only” one Cup championship so far (2015), he has a jaw-dropping 180 wins in NASCAR’s three national series. With his relative youth – and even with NASCAR’s new rules limiting Cup drivers’ participation in the XFINITY and Camping World Truck Series – Busch is likely to join NASCAR’s most celebrated winner, “The King” Richard Petty with 200 national series wins.
Petty’s all came in the Cup ranks – many in the 1960s and 70s when the series commonly ran 40-something races – but the 200 number is huge and iconic and Busch’s work should be respected as well.
Of his 180 NASCAR national series wins, Busch has 40 in Cup, a record 91 in XFINITY and 49 in the Truck Series.
Just for perspective, NASCAR Hall of Famer David Pearson has 106 wins (all but one in the Cup Series). Earnhardt had 97 major series wins (76 in Cup and 21 in XFINITY), the recently retired Jeff Gordon has 98 total (93 in Cup, five in XFINITY) and fellow retiree Tony Stewart has 62 national series victories (49 in Cup, 11 in XFINITY and 2 in the trucks).
While fans may be slow to appreciate Busch’s work – or at least slow to admit they do — many of the competitors he beat this past weekend publicly offered him praise – from Kyle Larson to Earnhardt’s son and namesake, Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I think Kyle Busch would be considered by many people to be the greatest race car driver in the history of the sport if and when he wins a few more championships,” Earnhardt said. “I think that’s the only thing that’s not allowed him to creep into that conversation yet for a lot of people – just say the media. Maybe the media thinks that Jimmie (Johnson), my dad … there’s a lot of people that would say David Pearson might have been the greatest race car driver ever. Kyle’s definitely getting in this conversation. Particularly with weekends like that.”
Busch only races a handful of times in the Truck Series and XFINITY Series, but he’s competing against those series’ champions and veterans.
It can’t be too easy to randomly jump in a truck or XFINITY car and beat a field of guys who run them at every stop on the schedule. At the very least, instead of his detractors wishing Busch didn’t win, how about wishing the others could beat him?
And if they can’t, don’t begrudge Busch the trophy.
He’s earned it.