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After adding a Daytona 500 trophy to his championship body of work, Kurt Busch's name will be among those considered at some point for the NASCAR Hall of Fame.
Certainly checking off those two boxes builds momentum for a serious look at Busch's legacy on track -- something he will still be building for years to come.
It is a legitimate and expected debate whether you can be elected to the Hall of Fame without a championship or Daytona 500 victory.
And while Busch now has both of those, last year's popular and most deserving new inductee Mark Martin proved your overall legacy is most important.
Martin's extensive body of work included five championship runner-up seasons in the sport's top series and an absolute heart-pounding Daytona 500 runner-up finish in 2007.
He scored 40 Cup victories -- a mark only Jimmie Johnson has met or exceeded among active drivers, and the 56 pole positions he won in the Cup series is seventh-best all-time. He added 49 wins in the XFINITY Series and another seven in the Camping World Truck Series.
Martin was absolutely one of those drivers who proved his talents in a wide variety of opportunities. He won in sports cars -- including the Rolex 24 at Daytona -- and hoisted a record five IROC titles -- best all-time against auto racing's best drivers representing multiple forms of racing.
For the versatile 2004 Cup champion Busch, there are distinct and important similarities on track between the two.
On the NASCAR side, this weekend's Daytona 500 victory gives Busch 29 wins and ranks him 25th all-time with the fifth-highest win total among active drivers. He's in the middle of a victory logjam tied at 29 trophies with Denny Hamlin. And they have three more than the next active driver on the list, Dale Earnhardt Jr.
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Kevin Harvick's 35 wins place him one position higher than his Stewart-Haas Racing teammate Busch among active drivers. Busch's younger brother, 2015 Cup champion Kyle, and 2003 Cup champion Matt Kenseth each have 38 victories.
In addition to his ability to win a season title and the schedule's biggest races, Busch has proven adept at winning pole positions. His 21 career total is fifth among active drivers.
Hall of Fame voters are also sure to take note of Busch's overall versatility from stock cars to IndyCars to even the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA).
Busch has done something no one has done in a decade -- he competed in the Indianapolis 500 and NASCAR's Coca-Cola 600 in the same day in 2014. He finished an impressive sixth place at Indy to claim Rookie of the Race honors and then flew to Charlotte where an engine problem relegated him to a 40th-place showing there.
In 2011 he made his NHRA Pro Stock debut, but lost in the first round to Erica Enders.
The overall body of racing work certainly speaks highly of Busch's versatility and talent and there's a lot of familiarity with some of NASCAR's earliest racers and already-elected Hall of Famers.
Best of all for the 38-year-old, he has plenty of prime years left to race and is currently in a well-fitted ride for the Stewart-Haas Racing team. From this point on, Busch's on-track resume will only need fine-tuning for a persuasive case for the Hall of Fame.
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