Kyle Busch at the Joe Gibbs Racing Media Tour press conference in Concord, North Carolina. (Photo: LAT Photographic)
The numbers don’t lie in the Sprint Cup career of Kyle Busch.
Victories every year. Two in 2005. Eight in 2008. Four in 2009. Four last year.
Contrast those to the point-standings numbers, however, and the differences are vivid.
Busch has never finished above fifth in points. In his four years at Joe Gibbs Racing, he has been 10th, 13th, eighth and 12th.
When the Chase arrives, Busch seems to disappear. Add those problems to the behavior issues that often bedevil Busch, and his search for a Sprint Cup championship remains in a mudhole.
For a driver who might be the best wheelman currently on the circuit, it’s an odd situation.
“He’s the best pure driver out there, but you have to have the whole package,” said retired champion and FOX Sports commentator Darrell Waltrip. “You can’t do it all by yourself. You have to have the support.
“He’s a young man (26 years old). There’s no reason for him to panic. He’s going to win more races. He’ll get himself in a championship situation.”
Busch, who has driven for two of the best teams in stock car racing – Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing, has made his path more difficult by occasionally wandering into briar thickets of controversy. He made the Chase last season but finished 12th (and last) in the Chase group. He missed the playoff race at Texas after being parked by NASCAR for crashing Ron Hornaday Jr. in the Camping World Truck race that weekend.
With the difficulties that situation caused at JGR and with the team’s primary sponsor, M&Ms-Mars, apparently ironed out, Busch said he is ready to begin pursuit of season-long success as the new year unfolds.
“Certainly, we went through a lot for the first few weeks after the Texas incident, but since then it’s been good,” Busch said. “We’re back to a new year and starting off fresh and being able to get to Daytona and race how I need to race to get wins.
“They (sponsors) want to be in victory lane. It’s frustrating when you don’t get to victory lane. When you win, it seems to make everything a bit easier.”
As for his run of controversy, Busch said it’s important for him to learn from incidents and rebuild relationships.
“You learn from each and every one, and you try to move on,” he said. “[There are] certainly aspects that I can be better at as a competitor and a person and understand a little more the ramifications that go behind it.
“It’s not necessarily affecting me. It affects Bill Janitz (his public relations representative), Joe and J.D. Gibbs, Dave Rogers (crew chief), my whole team, the JGR organization, Kyle Busch Motorsports and the sponsors who are behind the brands. It’s a whole network of people. And now with social networking, it’s a small world out there.
“Moving on, you have to move forward and work through the best-case scenario you can and get all those folks back on your side. I didn’t have much work to do with the people who are closest to me. Those people are utmost supportive of me and who I am and Samantha (his wife) and our relationship. They know who you are as a person.”
As for Busch’s problems in the Chase: “We would love to take the first 26 races and how we’ve run them and transfer that into the final 10. It just doesn’t seem to happen for whatever the reason,” he said.
The effort to reverse that trend – and others – begins this month in Daytona Beach.
Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEED.com and has been covering motorsports for 30 years. He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.
