Can Kyle Busch Put Together A Championship Season In 2011?
It stands to reason that Kyle Busch will win the Sprint Cup championship...someday.
After all, he’s already won 19 Cup races at the age of 25, made the Chase four times and is one of the most talented drivers in the sport.
So it’s not a stretch to think Busch will eventually become a Cup champion.
But when?
Through six full seasons, Busch hasn’t come close to winning the Chase. His best finish is fifth, and he’s never been in contention at the halfway point of NASCAR’s playoff.
Busch’s Chase finishes are 10th, fifth, 10th and eighth. For a driver with that much ability and extraordinary skill, everyone expects better – including Busch.
His lack of Chase success can no longer be written off as youth or a lack of experience. Maybe a few years ago, but not now.
At the same time, some of the other new or young drivers have excelled in some of their initial Chase attempts:
• Clint Bowyer finished third and fifth in his first two Chases.
• Carl Edwards finished third and second in two of his first three Chases.
• Denny Hamlin finished third in his first Chase.
If nothing else, Busch should be able to contend for the championship every year, if not win it. And he expects to.
“There’s got to be a point in which we can get there,” Busch said earlier this month, adding that he has “plenty” to improve on.
While Busch wouldn’t (or couldn’t) go into specifics about the lessons he learned from this year that will make him better next season, he says he’s “improved on quite a bit,” which could be bad news for his competition.
After all, the conventional wisdom has always been that if the guy ever figures out how to win a championship, he won’t just stop at one or two.
Recently, though, the Chase system has been to Busch’s detriment. While he’s improved on his consistency throughout the season as a whole, the same can’t be said for his performance in the Chase.
In 2008, he finished 10th in the points but would have finished third in the “traditional” season-long system. This season, he would have been sixth instead of eighth.
Busch said “it’s frustrating sometimes that way” to be hurt by the Chase format, but he’s determined to figure it out.
“It seems like it just comes down to the end of the year, the last 10 races – you’ve got to put it all together,” he said. “And there’s been one team that’s been the best at that five years in a row now. It’s been hard for all of us to watch.”
The biggest issue is that Busch hasn’t been able to put it all together – even when it wasn’t his doing.
New Hampshire used to be one of his worst tracks, and his 2008 Chase got off to a bad start when a crewman left a part unhooked. Busch never recovered.
This year, he put up consecutive top-10s to open the Chase, but then came the retaliation from David Reutimann at Kansas and a blown engine at Fontana and suddenly, Busch was done for another year.
What can he specifically do to improve? If Busch knows, he isn’t saying. Vague on specifics, he said he thought he learned enough about winning a championship through his Nationwide title run in 2009 and made reference to becoming a better person under the guidance of team owner Joe Gibbs.
But skill-wise, is he getting better as a driver?
“I think so,” he said. “I definitely don’t feel like I’ve gotten worse.”
So how will he get to the top of the sport? Time, he indicated, could be the best asset for the pairing of Busch and crew chief Dave Rogers.
In their first season together, Rogers got Busch back into the Chase and helped the driver mount his second-best season statistically (three wins, a 14.0 average finish).
The progression of that relationship could be the key to Busch finally contending in the Chase – and winning.
“I feel like everything this year has been a positive where we’ve grown, and Dave and myself have been able to get our relationship going – being able to work together, being able to make the Chase,” Busch said. “We had some bad races in there – not all of our doing – and it got us too far behind.”
One difference between Rogers and Busch’s previous crew chiefs like Steve Addington and Alan Gustafson is that when Busch loses his cool on the radio and spouts off, Rogers doesn’t hesitate to push back.
Busch fans who listen to the team radio will recall that on several occasions, Rogers has firmly told Busch to calm down and get re-focused when the driver gets overly animated.
Does Busch see that as a positive?
“Certainly,” Busch said without hesitation. “You’ve gotta have someone set you straight and put you back where you need to be. You get off on a tangent or something like that and you lose focus on what you’re doing or what the task is.
“Dave’s a good guy who can put it back in perspective for you in a quick manner, and you can get back to business.”
Talent has never been the problem for Busch; the issue is harnessing it into enough consistency to win a championship.
Will 2011 be the year it all comes together?
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