Time for Kyle Busch to grow up (Yahoo! Sports)
July 31, 2009
It’s make-or-break time for Kyle Busch, who has just six races left to save a season that started with such promise but now teeters on the edge of disaster.
He won two of the year’s first five races – maybe would have won the Daytona 500 if not for a crash he didn’t start – and led almost a third of the laps right out of the gate. It looked as if Busch was headed to a repeat of his 2008 breakout season, when he won 21 races across NASCAR’s top three series only to falter when the biggest trophy of them all, the Sprint Cup championship, was on the line.
Now, he’s in salvage mode.
A rough stretch knocked the wind out of Busch’s sails, and 15 races after appearing unstoppable, he’ll now be lucky to race for the title this season. He heads into Pocono Raceway ranked 14th in the standings, 82 points outside of the 12th and final qualifying spot for the Chase for the championship.
If he fails to make the Chase, he’ll have no one to blame but himself.
A fragile psyche, bad attitude, poor sportsmanship and sometimes a lack of professionalism formed a toxic mix that has regressed Busch back two years. All the progress he’d made since Rick Hendrick kicked him to the curb has been unraveled, and only Busch can put it back together again.
But first, how did it get to this?
Busch had such a remarkable swagger about him last season, when his air was invincible and he settled comfortably into his role as NASCAR villain. Of course, it’s easy to be hated when you’re winning all the time.
When the wins dry up, life isn’t so pleasant, and Busch has proved incapable of weathering the storms. That was obvious at the start of last year’s Chase, when a mechanical failure stalled him at the starting gate and he never recovered.
It wasn’t that Joe Gibbs Racing couldn’t get Busch back into title contention after his 34th-place finish at New Hampshire, but because Busch already believed he’d been defeated. An engine failure and last-place finish the next week at Dover only cemented his position in his mind.
There would be no frantic rally because, mentally, Busch didn’t have one in him.
It was the first glimpse of the self-improvement work Busch still needed – a disturbing revelation in the wake of the Hendrick firing that, as it turned out, wasn’t enough of a kick in the pants for Busch to recognize his faults and fix them.
Though he may have learned some lessons from the firing, he hadn’t learned enough. That became clear as early as March, when he furiously called out his JGR Nationwide Series team for a botched final pit stop that cost him a victory at Bristol. He angrily left his car on the race track for them to retrieve and stormed off without further comment.
Because he won the Cup race the next day, all seemed to be forgiven, even if not forgotten.
But this type of antic has followed Busch all season. He has berated his team, refused to act professionally when dealing with the media in defeat and failed to handle defeat in any sort of appropriate fashion.
It all came to a head two weeks ago at Chicagoland when an ill-handling race car pushed him to the brink. Busch found himself incapable of offering the feedback crew chief Steve Addington needed to fix the No. 18 Toyota. His 33rd-place finish left him teetering on the edge of Chase eligibility.
In essence, Busch hit rock bottom, which may have been the best thing for him and his team.
When he reported to Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Busch carried with him a bit of an attitude adjustment. Recognizing that his behavior had been unacceptable and likely only hurting himself, he displayed a professionalism that was most evident when a blown tire sent him to the garage, where he patiently answered media questions and sat with his crew as they repaired the damage.
The on-track damage was already done – Busch finished 38th to fall to 14th in the standings – but there was still something to be saved. The message he sent last Sunday was that he’s made some mistakes, and now he’s going to work like a dog to fix them.
Fans everywhere are likely rolling their eyes, unconvinced the petulant Shrub is capable of growing up. Or, they may be thrilled to see their most hated driver suffering through a bit of “comeuppance.”
But NASCAR needs Busch running well, and needs him in the Chase. As the most polarizing driver in the industry, he draws attention. And wasn’t it the late Dale Earnhardt who once said he didn’t care about the boos, just so long as they were making noise?
The Chase needs some noise, and Busch is the only one capable of turning up the volume. Good, bad or somewhere in the middle, his performances make people talk and tune in. Plus, he’s one of the few guys capable of putting together a blistering hot streak that could threaten Jimmie Johnson’s reign as champion and really make this a Chase to remember.
Aside from that, he’s got three wins this season. That’s second only to Mark Martin, and tied with Johnson in the Cup Series. As interesting as it would be to see Juan Pablo Montoya make his debut appearance in NASCAR’s playoff, or Ryan Newman make it back in, or Carl Edwards try to give Johnson another run for his money, those guys don’t have any wins this year.
Yes, consistency is important and ultimately that’s what puts you in contention for a championship. But winning has to count for something, and right now the most it does is give a paltry 10-point bonus to the Chase drivers at the start of their 10-race title hunt.
Again and again and again I will argue that NASCAR needs to create a larger incentive for winning. No, not “win a race and make the Chase,” because we all know drivers stumble into occasional victories, and someone 23rd in the standings shouldn’t be eligible to win a title. But there should be enough of a value on a victory that multiple wins gives a driver some sort of tangible advantage over the competition.
Aside from my strong belief that significant reward for winning would liven up races and prevent the current strategy of riding around until it’s time to go, it would ensure that teams with multiple wins wouldn’t be scrambling right now.
Believers in the old points system will light me up on this and argue teams with bad finishes and multiple mechanical problems don’t deserve a spot in the Chase. I’m not going to argue with that, because too much inconsistency is your own fault, and some of Busch’s issues are his own fault.
But some of those bad finishes were bad luck and bad breaks. If not for the last-lap tangle with Tony Stewart at Daytona, he could have four wins. If not for getting caught up in the Dale Earnhardt Jr.-Brian Vickers feud in the Daytona 500, he could have five.
Regardless, Busch is better than his record shows. Now it’s on him to fix it from here, because whether you like him or not, NASCAR needs him to be racing for the title.
Jenna Fryer covers NASCAR for The Associated Press and is a regular contributor to Yahoo! Sports. Send Jenna a question or comment for potential use in a future column or webcast.
