Kyle Busch has often been criticized for spending too much time racing in the Camping World Truck Series and the Xfinity Series instead of focusing on his primary job in the Sprint Cup Series.
The practice of Cup drivers moonlighting in lesser series has been debated for years before Busch ever arrived on the scene, but history has shown that drivers who run several series tend to win more races in their Cup cars. And when they cut back on extra-curricular racing, the Cup effort soon suffers.
Bobby Allison and Harry Gant stayed competitive in Cup into their 50s and many credit their time spent in the series now known as Xfinity for keeping their skills sharp.
But there have been others, like Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon, who have been successful racing only in the elite Cup series.
Busch said on a teleconference this week that his recent success in Cup, winning three straight races that were run under three different rules packages, is due in part to his extra-curricular racing.
“It’s a challenge being able to jump back and forth between the Xfinity cars and the Cup cars or even running the Camping World trucks,” he said. “You’re always trying to figure out that balance of what exactly the car or truck is going to drive like. So I think that sort of lends itself a little bit more towards me racing in these different rules packages.”
Busch also attributed his strong run to his relationship with his crew chief Adam Stevens, who has worked with Busch in the past in the Xfinity Series but is in his first year as a Cup crew chief.
If Busch were to win on Sunday at Pocono it would be the first time a Cup driver won four straight races since Johnson won four in a row in 2007.
Richard Petty set the all-time mark of 10 consecutive wins in 1967.
Rookie Pierce impresses: Camping World Truck Series team owner Mike Mittler is best known for helping Sprint Cup drivers Jamie McMurray and Carl Edwards get their starts in NASCAR's top divisions.
Last week, in the Mudsummer Classic at Eldora Speedway, Mittler put another driver on the path to NASCAR racing.
Mittler, a machinist and tool maker from Foristall, Mo., hired 18-year-old dirt Late Model driver Bobby Pierce from Oakwood, Ill., to drive his No. 63 Chevrolet at Eldora. Pierce led 39 laps and finished second to another dirt racer, Christopher Bell.
It was Mittler’s first pole as a team owner and his best-ever finish. The only other top-10 he’d ever had was with Edwards at Kansas Speedway in 2002.
“Before last week, a lot of people in mainstream motorsports had never heard of Bobby Pierce, but he’s so good that taking him to Eldora was like taking a machine gun to a knife fight,” Mittler said. “But it also was a total team effort. We had a good set-up under the truck. A lot of small things added up to a great effort.”
Elder Ragan back at AMS: Ken Ragan is returning to Atlanta Motor Speedway as director of the Legends racing program, a job he held from 1997-2001. He replaces the retiring Dwight Pilgram, who has held the job for the past four years.
Ragan, a former Sprint Cup driver and the father of current driver David Ragan, had been helping his son run a Ford dealership in Perry. But when David Ragan switched from driving Fords to Toyotas in the Sprint Cup Series, the dealership was sold. That left his dad in position to return to AMS.
“I think I can add to what’s been going on with the Legends and Bandolero program,” Ragan said, adding that he’s already planning a series of races to be run on the road course in the infield at AMS as well as bringing in experienced drivers to mentor the young participants in the Legends program.
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