11:00 PM
JD
Long before the black #3 had millions of fans and won 6 championships in 9 years, Dale Earnhardt drove a pink #2 followed by the yellow #3 Wrangler car. Those cars and Earnhardt's long hair and bushy mustache were synonymous with on-track beating and banging. Yes Earnhardt won the championship in 1980, his second year, but he did not produce consistent domination until he developed his ability for long term focus.
There is no worker in the garage, fan in the stands, or commentator on Sunday afternoons that doubts Kyle Busch's ability for short term focus. Every driver in NASCAR knows exactly how far Busch will go if he ends up on their rear bumper with 10 to go. But what Kyle Busch has lacked is the ability turn winning races into winning Sprint Cups.
Part of what has been in Kyle's way of winning Cups is the fact that the season is long. Thirty years ago when Dale Earnhardt was wrecking Waltrip and Labonte the season was 29 or 30 races long. Today Busch is driving in 36 Sprint Cup races per season. That is, when he can control himself. Sure that is only 6 more races, you may say, but that is a month and a half more of a season. Multiply on top of that the fact that Busch has been racing Nationwide races and truck series races and managing his own truck series team. No wonder that by mid October he may not remember exactly where NASCAR's line is. I'm sure they are more than happy to point it out for him when needed.
Some of that packed schedule may be thinned for the 2012 season. Word out this week is that Busch will possibly run a small Nationwide schedule with little to no truck series races. Although Busch would rather be behind the wheel than anywhere else, perhaps given some time to sit and watch could do him good, especially as the season progresses.
In the past 4 years Kyle Busch has had one of the best winning totals in NASCAR, 19 wins, just two behind Jimmie Johnson. However, in those years when he should have contended and possibly won championships, Busch had zero wins in the final 12 races of the year. Actually, Kyle Busch has only one Chase win in his career and that was in 2005. Also, in 2008 when Busch dominated victory lane with 8 wins, he had no wins in the final 14 races. All of the 8 wins came in the first 22 races. Yes, 8 out of 22 is domination, but 0 for 14 allows championships to slip away, especially in the Chase format.
Will a thinning of his itinerary and a tight grip on the reigns by Joe and J.D. Gibbs propel Busch to contend and perhaps win the championship in 2012 or beyond? Time will tell, but I don't foresee him wrecking any cars under caution or spinning any unmanned cars on pit road during the 2012 season. That, of course, doesn't mean he can't "rattle their cage" every now and then...
Posted in: Dale Earnhardt,Dale Earnhardt Jr,Darrell Waltrip,Jimmie Johnson,Joe Gibbs,Kyle Busch,Nascar,Nascar Blog,Nascar Nationwide Series,nascar news,NASCAR Race Results,Racing,Sprint Cup
4 comments:
Great article but just wanted to point out that I don't see now he could have "dominated victory lane with 8 wins" when in that same year, Cousin Carl had 9 wins. Posting as "anonymous" because I don't have a google account, aim, etc.
Well, anonymous, it's like this, I felt comfortable saying dominated about the first 22 races of that year since during that span when Busch had 8 wins, Edwards had 4. Oh, and in the last 4 seasons when Busch had 19 wins Edwards had 12. No Edwards has not necessarily racked up the wins in the last 3 years. But he has had the long term focus needed to compete solidly for the championship, unlike Kyle Busch.
Good, well written article. Thanks for remembering Dales early years, when he was truly a "wild thing" too. People seem to only want to remember him at St. Dale now and he sure wasn't that and that's what made him great. Only a couple wins behind JJ and ahead of Jrs wins in about half the time in Cup so you're right, he has that short term focus. He did really well handling the childish attacks by Childress and Harvick through the year, but by the end of the year, he'd had it and he blew up, which is what I think the other drivers push him to do. Thank God that another RACER has come along. Only be one Dale Earnhardt, but Kyle is the closest we've seen in talent, passion and 2nd is first loser mentality. Back in the day it was Earnhardt fans against Gordon fans. Since Jr. joined Hendricks, we now have a combo of Jr and Gordon fans hating on another RACER. Rowdy is still younger than Dale was when he came to Cup. The best is yet to come.
This is a great read,JD! Really enjoy all your blog posts!
Post a Comment