Kenny Bruce: More evidence that in NASCAR, winning isn’t everything
Joe Gibbs Racing's Kyle Busch talks to crew chief Steve Addington at Daytona International Speedway in February. // Jim Fluharty, NASCAR Scene
Related articles: Dave Rogers to become Kyle Busch's new Cup crew chief at Joe Gibbs Racing
COMMENTARY
If winning were truly everything in NASCAR, then Kyle Busch and Steve Addington probably wouldn’t be saying their goodbyes after Sunday’s Sprint Cup Series race at Talladega Superspeedway.
The driver/crew chief combination won 12 times in less than two full years together. Jimmie Johnson, the barometer by which all things NASCAR are measured these days, won 13 races during the same time.
And it’s worth noting that there are more than a dozen full-time drivers with fewer career wins and a whole lot more starts competing in the series today.
In other words, Busch has been one of the hottest drivers in the series during the past two years.
But Johnson’s in the Chase For The Sprint Cup for the umpteenth time, Busch isn’t, and Addington is left to wonder if life off the road is in his immediate future.
Dave Rogers, a bright, capable crew chief for JGR in the Nationwide Series, will take over for Addington following the Talladega race, and if he isn’t concerned, he should be. Busch can, and likely will, win a slew of races. But the ultimate goal isn’t to win races anymore – it’s to win championships.
And in today’s NASCAR, you can’t win championships if you don’t qualify for the Chase.
Strange as it may seem, though, it’s only in NASCAR that you can succeed without winning. After all, clearly it isn’t a requirement that you win races to make the Chase. Carl Edwards, Greg Biffle, Ryan Newman and Juan Pablo Montoya are proof that going winless through the first 26 races but finishing well enough, often enough, can lock in a spot in the top 12. To the best of my knowledge, their respective crew chiefs haven’t been chastised, threatened or, as will be the case with Addington, replaced.
Perhaps that was the problem with the Busch/Addington combination. Perhaps Busch won too much. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it. But what if he hadn’t won four times, but managed to qualify for the Chase? It’s not that farfetched to presume that had that been the case, it’s likely Addington wouldn’t be in line for a new job description.
But, as it turned out, Busch didn’t, falling just eight points shy of the final qualifying position for the Chase.
Does the Chase carry that much clout?
Unfortunately, it seems the answer is yes. The act of winning races, by itself, is no longer enough to guarantee job security.
Of course, there’s always the possibility that Addington’s days were numbered regardless, but there certainly wasn’t any evidence to support that prior to the start of the Chase.
The bottom line is that there are no guarantees. At one time, winning races used to be the goal of every team. Now, it’s just one of the goals, and a lesser one at that.
That can’t be good for the sport, and it certainly wasn’t good for Addington.
