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NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
DUNLAP: Witness To History
Kyle Busch could eventually eclipse the 200-win mark across NASCAR's top three divisions...
Ray Dunlap  |  Posted September 02, 2010   Charlotte, NC
Ray Dunlap, NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Reporter. (Photo: SPEED)
“Savor this moment. Someday you’ll look back on it and maybe think it was the greatest thing you ever saw because no one else will ever be that good.”

Those were the words of Benny Parsons to me after I’d been complaining about Jeff Gordon’s domination in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series in 1998, the year he won 13 of 33 races and notched 26 top-five finishes en route to claiming the championship.

Now my advice to my NASCAR TV colleagues who are tired of watching a certain 25-year-old dominate the NASCAR Nationwide and Camping World Truck Series is this: Remember these moments when Kyle Busch is kicking everybody’s ass because someday you’ll look back on it and say, “I watched history in the making.”

Kyle could score his 80th NASCAR win Friday night in the Truck Series at Kentucky Speedway, a mind-boggling scenario because he’s not too far from 100 victories, which would put him third only to David Pearson (105) and Richard Petty (200) in career wins. It’s almost unfathomable to imagine Kyle achieving such a feat so early in his life, because the average age of drivers who reached their 80th NASCAR victory was 36 or 38 years old. The kid is 25.

But “The Kid” Gordon also was a 20-something youngster when he turned the Cup Series on its ear in 1998, as well as when he won his first Cup title in 1995. I remember covering the Cup races in ‘98 and hearing fans and the media bemoan his weekly domination.

I was right there with them. A group of us were at dinner one night with Benny Parsons and I, too, was complaining about Gordon’s streak. So, Benny pulled me aside and said, “Ray, don’t you understand the objective of this whole thing is to win every race? Jeff’s going to be disappointed that there are 33 races and he only won 13.” I said, "Yeah, but people don’t like it." He replied, “Savor this moment. Someday you’ll look back on it and maybe think it was the greatest thing you ever saw because no one else will ever be that good.”

I remember that conversation so vividly because I thought Benny was placing Gordon on a pedestal too early in his career. But then I watched Gordon go on to win four championships and be listed as one of the greatest of all time.

From my perspective, what Kyle is doing at this point in his career is even more impressive than what Gordon accomplished that year in the sense that Kyle wins in anything he gets in. I’m not referring strictly to the top three NASCAR divisions, but whenever he runs a Late Model or an off-road truck or whatever, he climbs behind the wheel and is instantly competitive. Not to take anything away from Gordon, but the numbers Kyle has posted are quite remarkable.

Kyle obviously has a long way to go in his racing career and who knows what his final tally will be, but if he keeps stomping the field like he has in the Truck and Nationwide Series, his stats could be unbelievable one day. Granted, he hasn’t been winning Cup races at the same pace as earlier in the season, but I also don’t think he’s won his last Cup race this season either.

He’s going to be in the NASCAR Chase for the Sprint Cup this year after missing it in 2009, and I think we’ll see him take a different approach this time by virtue of what he learned the past few seasons. In previous years, I think Kyle entered the Chase thinking he needed to knock out 10 wins in order to win the championship. However, he’s matured enough to know how to play the game and he understands consistency can get the job done. Furthermore, he used to think he had to push the car to the limit every single lap to have a shot at winning, whereas now he understands how to pace himself to be around at the end.
Kyle Busch won all three major NASCAR events at Bristol Motor Speedway in August. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

However, this is a different mentality than Kyle exercises in the Camping World Truck and Nationwide Series, where he drives his vehicle as hard as it will go every single lap if he has a shot to win. That method obviously has paid off for him this year as he has won four of the nine Truck races he has entered, in addition to two runner-up and one third-place showing.

Add to that the fact he has won exactly half of the Nationwide events he has entered, and you begin to see how plausible it would be for him to have another seven or eight wins across the three divisions by the time we finish up at Homestead. Heck, he’s running seven of the remaining eight Truck races in 2010.

But the writing was on the wall long ago. Kyle made the statement last year that he was eyeing the 200-race win mark, Richard Petty’s win record in the Cup Series. While Kyle instead would be shooting for 200 wins among NASCAR’s top three divisions, the possibility alone still is amazing and the competition has been forewarned.

Ray Dunlap is a veteran pit road reporter for SPEED in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series and a host for NASCAR Race Hub. Dunlap also reports for The SPEED Report, NASCAR Live and other programs on SPEED. Dunlap has covered the Truck Series since 1997 and has served as a play-by-play announcer and pit road reporter for several series, including the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, NASCAR Nationwide Series, IPower Dash Series and ARCA Series. He was honored in 1997 as the Electronic Motorsports Media Personality of the Year and enjoys scuba diving and woodworking in his spare time.

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