Kyle Busch is coming off two consecutive finishes outside the top 30 (Chicagoland and Indianapolis) – something he did only once last season.
Busch started off the 2008 10-race Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup with finishes of 34th and 43rd, his worst two-race stretch of the season. But over the first 26 races, he was near flawless.
The current 2009 skid bounced Busch from the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series top 12. He now sits 14th – a stark contrast from last year when he held the points lead at this juncture (Busch was 253 points ahead of second-place Dale Earnhardt Jr. after 20 races in 2008).
Below are Busch’s statistics through 20 races in 2008 and this season:
Kyle Busch After 20 Races (2008-2009)
Top Top Avg. Year Rk Wins 5s 10s Finish ARP FLR LT15% Led DR Points 2008 1 7 12 13 9.8 9.6 442 77.3 1,079 110.7 3,004 2009 14 3 4 6 18.1 12.7 254 68.7 809 99.3 2,347
ARP: Average Running Position; FLR: Fastest Laps Run; LT15%: Percentage of Laps in the Top 15; DR: Driver Rating
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This weekend, Busch will try to end the slide in the Sunoco Red Cross Pennsylvania 500 at Pocono Raceway – a track that has been unkind to him in the past.
In his nine-race Pocono career, Busch has only two top-10 finishes – and five finishes outside the top 20 (including a 43rd-place finish in last season’s June race). In terms of Driver Rating, it is his third-worst track. In terms of average finish, it’s his fourth-worst:
Lowest Avg. Driver Ratings
Driver Track Rating Kansas 72.3 Talladega 74.8 Pocono 78.5 Homestead 79.6 Martinsville 89.1
Lowest Combined Avg. Finish
Avg. Track Finish Homestead 29.5 Kansas 26.8 Talladega 25.7 Pocono 22.0 Darlington 20.4
Below is Busch’s race-by-race log at Pocono, where he has led only two laps in his career, the fewest of any track in the series (all driver race-by-race logs can be found at NASCARMedia.com):
Kyle Busch at Pocono (2005-09)
Date Finish ARP FLR LT15% DR Led 6/05 4 13.6 3 59.7 96.8 0 7/05 39 18 0 57.6 71.5 0 6/06 22 12.3 3 83 85.8 0 7/06 12 22.8 1 34 83.6 0 6/07 8 6.8 1 96.2 106.8 0 8/07 12 21.4 8 20 77.2 2 6/08 43 40.3 0 0 26.8 0 8/08 36 13.8 2 66.5 74.7 0 6/09 22 12.4 1 76.5 83 0 Total 22.0 17.9 19 52.6 78.5 2
ARP: Average Running Position; FLR: Fastest Laps Run; LT15%: Percentage of Laps in the Top 15; DR: Driver Rating
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At Pocono, Busch has eclipsed the 100.0 Driver Rating barrier just once, in an eighth-place finish in 2007. His lowest Driver Rating was in June of 2008, when he scored at 26.8 (the lowest rating a driver can score is 23.3).
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