Kyle Busch dominates another race, nearly wraps up series title

By Jeff Gluck - Associate Editor

Wednesday, December 02, 2009

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The nice folks over at World Wrestling Entertainment are familiar with foregone conclusions. So before Kyle Busch even got in his car before the Nationwide Series race at Texas, the WWE presented Busch with an authentic world championship belt.

Busch responded with one of the performances that have grown so familiar to Nationwide fans over the last two years: A completely dominating effort in which he hogged the lead on nearly every lap and was unchallenged for most of the day.

Now, all signs point to Busch wrapping up his first-ever NASCAR title at Phoenix. Maybe those WWE people were onto something with their early delivery.

“I wish I could have gotten it done as soon as possible,” Busch said, “but ‘as soon as possible’ is going to come next week.”

Busch won his eighth race of the season to go along with 11 runnerup finishes. He loathed those second-place finishes at the time but they account for why he’s headed toward clinching early despite strong competition from Carl Edwards and Brad Keselowski.

The driver has an intense passion to win, not settle for second. So even on a day when Busch drove his WWE-sponsored car to victory lane and laid the smackdown on the competition, he couldn’t help but think of what might have been.

“You know what would be impressive is if those 11 second-place finishes were wins – that would be 19 wins,” he said. “That’s what’s stupid. That’s what’s silly.”

He then added, in a bit of wacky humor that seems to come out of his mouth more often lately, “The only thing worse than finishing second is when you finish second in something to a pregnant woman – and then you’re third.”

Fortunately for Busch, he hasn’t experienced too many setbacks lately.

The driver has won 18 Nationwide races in the last two years and has a career win total of 29 – already fourth on the series’ all-time list. But though he has continued to win at a pace comparable to last season, the runnerup finishes show a difference in his mentality.

Last season, Busch ran 30 races and failed to finish six of them – all due to crashes. This year, Busch has only crashed out twice in 33 starts, perhaps indicating he doesn’t push his car over its limits if he doesn’t have a strong enough vehicle to win.

His approach has not been as much “checkers or wreckers” as it used to be. Not this season, when he had visions of a championship in mind.

“It’s an accomplishment,” he said. “It’s something you set out to do as a young guy. Just to win a NASCAR title means a lot.”

Crew chief Jason Ratcliff mentioned that last year, “seconds didn’t matter.”

“See?” Busch interjected. “He says it, too!”

Ratcliff grinned and indicated the team’s approach has changed with Busch’s.

“I love seconds, man,” Ratcliff said. “They’re better than thirds.”

At Texas, Busch set himself up for a fourth consecutive victory at the track by staying out on old tires – even when Ratcliff thought his driver should pit for fresh rubber.

But by doing so, Busch had nine cars between himself and the first car with fresh tires on the final restart. No one could drive up through the field to catch him with just 14 laps remaining, and Busch finished ahead of Casey Mears (subbing for Jeff Burton) and Jason Leffler.

“We run our own race, we run for our own championship,” Leffler said. “Realistically, from three or four races in, we could tell the Gibbs team was going to be pretty dominant, and from that point on, we just focused on our own program.”

Busch and the No. 18 team have just been that good – competitors would rather close their eyes and pretend Busch isn’t there.

No wonder the WWE was so willing to award a championship belt before the actual championship.

The day wasn’t all good news for Busch, however. NASCAR announced it had found an improperly secured weight on the first day of inspection, which has carried a 25-point penalty in the past. If Busch does get penalized, he’ll have to finish seventh or better at Phoenix to secure the championship a week early.

That he’ll win it at some point is in little doubt.

“Well, you know, it ain’t over until it’s over, but they look pretty good,” said Edwards, who is now 272 points behind. “I’d feel good if I was in their position.”