Anyone who has been paying attention to NASCAR Sprint Cup racing for the past 18 months should not have been the least bit surprised at the sight of Kyle Busch in victory lane after winning Saturday night’s race at the Richmond International Raceway. With that thought in mind let’s begin with:
HOORAH for Kyle Busch for another amazing on track performance while giving himself a very special birthday present. The numbers associated with this driver is beginning to silence even his strongest critics. He now has a combined 50 wins in NASCAR’s big three national touring series with 15 of those wins being in the Sprint Cup Series. He currently ranks no lower than sixth in all three of the series points standings.
How strong was Busch during his birthday weekend in Virginia? He won a late model race on Thursday night, the NASCAR Nationwide Series race on Friday night and the Sprint Cup race on Saturday night. He was scheduled to race in a late model event in Nashville on Sunday but the race was rained out. That caused Dave Moody, of Sirius Satellite Radio, to quip “the only person who beat Kyle Busch this weekend was Mother Nature.” By the way Moody gets a HOORAH for that great line.
Related to this, a trio of HOORAHS goes out first to Busch’s crew chief Steve Addington who tied a nice bow on his driver’s birthday present with some great calls from the pit box. The second one goes to the pit crew who made sure their driver got the track position he needed to get to the checkers. The third HOORAH goes out to Joe Gibbs Racing who earned their 71st Sprint Cup win which puts them seventh on the all time team owner’s win list.
Whether you’re his self proclaimed greatest fan or someone who cringes at the mention of his name no one can deny the presence of Kyle Busch. On the track he’s one of the best drivers in NASCAR racing that we have seen in quite awhile and he’s going to be good for the sport. Off the track he’s funny, sarcastic, arrogant and capable of generally behaving like a brat. That is also something that a seemingly vanilla coated NASCAR, with their often over inflated sense of corporate image, needs right now.
If the racing media proclaims NASCAR newcomer Joey Lagano as “the best thing since sliced bread” then Kyle Busch is the entire bakery that creates the bread.
While we’re beating around the Busch’s, (sorry about that), let’s send a HOORAH out to Kurt Busch and the Miller Lite/Penske Racing team. This rejuvenated effort is now second in the NASCAR Sprint Cup standings just a mere ten points behind series leader Jeff Gordon. There are likely a few reasons for this team coming alive the way they have so far in 2009. But the biggest reason is their decision to switch to the new Dodge R6 engine that became available for this year. This new power house power plant seems to be working well for them.
That leads to WAZZUP with the Dodge teams who are not employing the availability of this new engine? This is especially true of Richard Petty Motorsports-RPM. This is a team that could seriously use some extra horsepower and speed. At the very least one would think that RPM would want to put the new engine in Kasey Kahne’s #9 Budweiser Dodge. It’s hardly a garage secret that Kahne has been highly frustrated with team performances as of late. When asked last weekend in Richmond why RPM wasn’t using the new Dodge engine Kahne made an eyebrow raising reply and said “exactly why we aren’t using the new engine depends on who you talk to about it.”
Since that time RPM announced that they would be switching to the new engines at the end of this month just in time for the Dover race. But WAZZUP with waiting so long? One would think that they would want the new engine in the cars during the double Lowes Motor Speedway weekends that features the Sprint Cup All Star race and the Coco Cola 600.
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