NASCAR Cup Series

Kyle Busch just keeps on winning

Published Sep. 3, 2009 5:01 a.m. ET

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Larry McReynolds

Of all the racing that was available this past weekend, the only one I didn't get a chance to watch was the truck race in Iowa. But man, you have to love Kyle Busch. Like I said last week, love him or hate him, you have to respect his ability and the fact the man loves to race — plus, more importantly, win.

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At the tender age of 24, Kyle Busch is already ninth on NASCAR's all-time wins list. Will he, or anyone, ever catch the King?

It doesn't matter what he races in either. Last week after the Bristol race, Kyle went to Nashville and ran in a Modified race. Again, he just absolutely loves to race. It sure shows, so you can't deny him that. You pretty much know that no matter what series you are in, to win you will have to beat Kyle Busch.

Iowa was something like Kyle's 56th NASCAR win and the thing that is truly amazing is how fast he has done it. Only 24 years old, Kyle Busch hasn't been racing very long, folks. He's done it in all three top NASCAR series. The other truly amazing thing is that he has driven different types of vehicles, for different teams, with different crew chiefs, yet still comes out on top. With the competition he's faced, to me, it's nothing short of phenomenal.

Somewhere he is going to slow down. Even though he is at 56 NASCAR wins, getting to that 100 plateau is still going to be steep. He's already announced that he won't be running the full Nationwide series next year. Instead, he is going to focus more on his Cup program.

Look at Mark Martin. He had his 1,000th NASCAR Cup start at Bristol two weeks ago. He's another one that has had success in all three series, with 94 overall wins. While he pretty much is only running Cup for the rest of his career, if he keeps his winning pace up, it is quite possible that we could be talking about Mark winning 100 NASCAR races.

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The NASCAR Camping World truck series has nine races to go. You would be hard pressed, however, to go back over the last number of seasons and find a time when the current leader was so far ahead in the points. Ron Hornaday has over a 200-point lead right now. Historically they are right down to the wire in determining their champion.

Shifting gears back to the Cup side of things and the Chase, this is pretty wide open. We are just talking three or four players. The way I see it, there are basically eight teams battling for six spots. For the most part, these eight teams are pretty darn competitive. Here's the wild part. It is within the realm of possibility that Kyle Busch and Brian Vickers could both finish in the Top 10 at both Atlanta and Richmond, yet miss making the Chase.

It's just that tight and more importantly, the competition is just that fierce. If you are Kyle and Brian with only two races to go, you simply have to throw caution to the wind. Now I am not saying to be stupid, but you have to be aggressive.

Now if you are those six drivers just inside the top 12, you can't be very conservative. They do know that all they have to do is beat the No. 18 and the No. 93 for the next two weeks and they will be fine to make the Chase. There will be nothing Kyle and Brian can do.

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