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CUP: A Tale Of Two Toyotas
Written by: Tom Jensen   
Daytona Beach, Fla.
 
Tony Stewart sits on the pit box after turning his car over to JJ Yeley during the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona. (Photo by Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR) ยป More Photos

With apologies to Charles Dickens, for Joe Gibbs Racing, the 2008 NASCAR Sprint Cup season has been the best of times and the worst of times.

Kyle Busch, the fiery and brilliantly talented driver, can do no wrong in his first year at JGR, winning six of the first 18 races of the season in his No. 18 Toyota, and opening a 182-point lead in the Sprint Cup standings. While there’s no questioning the enormity of his talent or the quality of the organization he belongs to, Busch will be the first to tell you he’s enjoyed good fortune in the first half of the season, as he did Saturday night when he won the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway.

Conversely, teammates Tony Stewart and Denny Hamlin have been snake-bitten on any number of occasions. Stewart
lost the Coca-Cola 600 when a tire went flat after 596 of 600 miles, while Hamlin lost his home race at Richmond after leading 381 of a scheduled 400 laps, again to a cut tire.

The same old patterns repeated themselves at Daytona: Busch won the race because a caution came out on the final lap seconds before Carl Edwards was about to pass him for the victory, while Hamlin finished 26th and Stewart 20th, both caught up in late-race crashes not of their own making.

“There's no rabbit's foot or four-leaf clover or any of that stuff that I have stashed in my pockets anywhere, but if there was some that I knew would bring luck, I would keep it,” said Busch after his series-high sixth victory of the season.

His teammates were not so fortunate.

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