Among the many feathers in Kyle Busch’s racing cap is the one he earned for being the winner of the inaugural Sprint Cup race on Saturday night at Kentucky Speedway. Busch held off the late-race charge of five-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson to get his third Cup win of the season and take over the series points lead.
Busch also won Thursday’s Camping World Truck Series race at Kentucky, giving him 99 career victories in NASCAR’s top three series. He now has 22 in Cup, 48 in the Nationwide Series and 29 in trucks. He’s one Nationwide win from tying Mark Martin for the lead in all-time Nationwide wins, and he holds the single-season record of 24 victories in one of NASCAR’s top three circuits, a mark he set last year.
Busch was asked at Kentucky if it would be special to get his 100th win at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on July 31. Not surprisingly, he hopes not to wait that long.
“I’m hoping it comes [this weekend at New Hampshire Motor Speedway],” he answered. “Sorry.”
He went on to say that wins are special, no matter when or where he gets them.
“Certainly, whenever the next one is, I’ll be cherishing it just as much as I did the last one,” he said. “To me, I don’t want to wait that long for win 100. Hopefully, we get the opportunity to run up front again and have a chance to win some other races before we get to the Brickyard.
“Brickyard is still a little ways off. Maybe we can talk about 104 or something by then.”
Busch has accumulated his numbers in a relatively short period of time. As a 19-year-old he got his first major NASCAR win in a Nationwide Series race at Richmond on May 14, 2004. Driving for Hendrick Motorsports, he led 236 of 250 laps to beat Greg Biffle for the win. He went on to win five times that year and recorded his first Cup victory a year later at California Speedway, again beating Biffle. And his first truck win came May 20, 2005, at Charlotte Motor Speedway in a truck owned by Billy Ballew.
Busch’s win total likely would have surpassed the century mark long ago had he not been taken out of his first truck series ride by a NASCAR-imposed change in the minimum age to compete in major races.
At age 16, after winning more than 60 Legends car races, he started driving a truck for Jack Roush. He finished ninth in his debut at Indianapolis Raceway Park, now Lucas Oil Raceway. In his second start, at the old Chicago Motor Speedway, he was leading with 12 laps to go when he ran out of fuel.
Later that year, he had set the fastest time in practice for a truck race at California Speedway that was part of a NASCAR/CART doubleheader. But since the CART race had tobacco sponsorship, Busch’s participation would have violated the master settlement agreement that prohibited people under 18 from competing in races sponsored by tobacco companies. NASCAR then raised its minimum age because it also had sponsorship at that time from a tobacco company, Winston.
Busch went to race with the American Speed Association and returned to NASCAR, switching to Hendrick Motorsports, when he turned 18.
The wins have added up more rapidly with his move to Joe Gibbs Racing in 2008, after he was released from Hendrick Motorsports to make room for Dale Earnhardt Jr.
So what are some of Busch’s favorite NASCAR wins? He said his win in Kentucky’s inaugural Cup race was “right up there with the best of them,” but recalling the other big days and nights isn’t as easy as it might seem.
“That’s a tough question,” he said. “I probably can’t even remember 10 of them, to be honest with you.
“I think Vegas, winning there in my hometown, was probably the biggest win of my Sprint Cup Series career. I’ve not won the Coke 600 or the Brickyard or the Daytona 500. Vegas is right up there on the top of my list. I’d say the Bristol night race. Guys always talk about how important that one is and how much that one feels like.”
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