{"id":24177,"date":"2019-03-15T21:27:49","date_gmt":"2019-03-16T02:27:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=24177"},"modified":"2019-03-15T21:33:15","modified_gmt":"2019-03-16T02:33:15","slug":"kyle-busch-has-the-opportunity-at-nascar-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2019\/03\/15\/kyle-busch-has-the-opportunity-at-nascar-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Kyle Busch has the opportunity at NASCAR history"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – At this point, NASCAR<\/a> history properly teed-up, Kyle Busch<\/strong><\/a> is simply ready to buckle up, fire up, and hopefully raise a 200th trophy up.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Kyle Busch, driver of the #18 Interstate Batteries Toyota, walks through the garage area following practice for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Auto Club 400 at Auto Club Speedway on March 15, 2019 in Fontana, California. (Photo by Jared C. Tilton\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

The 33-year old has combined to win 199 times in NASCAR\u2019s three national series \u2013 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup, Xfinity and Gander Outdoors Truck Series. The historic mark could come with a win either in Saturday\u2019s Production Alliance Group 300 Xfinity race at California\u2019s Auto Club Speedway or Sunday\u2019s Auto Club 400 (at 3:30 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).<\/p>\n

Or perhaps. \u2026 he even eclipses the milestone all in one weekend winning back-to-back races and becoming the first driver in NASCAR history to score 201 victories in the three combined series.<\/p>\n

Fans and historians are eager to see if and when he sets the mark. Busch figures he\u2019s more ready than anyone to see where his fortunes take him. But then again, he stressed Friday, his desire to win races has little to do with historical numbers and everything to do with personal high expectations.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t change anything,” Busch said of being on the verge of win No. 200 this weekend. \u201cJust come out here and we\u2019re entered in both races. We come out here and try to do the best we can to win. If we win on Saturday and that\u2019s win 200, then so be it. It is what it is.\u201d<\/p>\nhttp:\/\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/MENCS_AutoClub_KyBusch_031519.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

And, he added, \u201cIf it happens on Saturday, maybe a hat or something in Victory Lane. Other than that, we go onto the next one. There\u2019s not going to be much celebration around it because it\u2019s just going to be focused on the next race which is going to be the next day.”<\/p>\n

Certainly Busch\u2019s record at the two-mile Auto Club Speedway \u2013 located a little more than three hours from his Las Vegas hometown – should provide plenty of confidence and optimism.<\/p>\n

Busch has three Monster Energy Series wins at the track \u2013 including his very first series win in 2005. He has a record six Xfinity Series wins too \u2013 including three consecutive from 2010-11. And he is a perfect two-for-two in the Gander Outdoors Truck Series at the track too, even though the Trucks aren\u2019t racing this weekend. Busch\u2019s 11 combined national series victories at Auto Club Speedway make him the winningest driver at the facility and that\u2019s not a bad stat to carry into a potentially sport-changing race.<\/p>\n

And his 200 wins are as varied as his work at this particular track. He has 52 Monster Energy Series wins (11th-most all-time) and his 94 Xfinity wins and 53 Truck Series victories are most ever in those respective series. He won both the Xfinity and Cup race just last week in Phoenix. He swept the two series at Auto Club Speedway in 2013.<\/p>\n

His competitors do not doubt that Busch may score win 200 this weekend. And at the young age of 33, with a multi-win pace established for the past 15 years, Busch will likely add many MANY more victories \u2013 and probably more championships – to his future NASCAR Hall of Fame trophy total.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hate to see Kyle Busch win as much as anybody does,” 2017 Auto Club Speedway winner Kyle Larson said with a laugh.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just amazing to see how good he is in all types of series and race cars and his win percentages are unbelievable even with all the restrictions that you have now with the amount of races you can run.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe still wins just as much, if not more. For him to be as good as he is at every race track is pretty spectacular. You can look at most drivers and pinpoint their best race tracks, and I don\u2019t know if you can really do that with Kyle Busch.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery race track is his best race track.\u201d<\/p>\n

As reverent as Busch has been regarding his win total and where it places him historically in the sport, he is quick to remind that he just wants to win. Period. The headlines, record books and buzz about the accomplishment is not what has motivated him – even though he conceded trackside Friday afternoon, it will be a special moment to claim 200.<\/p>\n

\u201cCertainly, I have had a few of my friends and stuff send me some links of things they saw this week of some articles and things,” Busch said. \u201cI read what [200 Cup race winner] Richard [Petty] said the other day which was cool. He talked about how if I was thrown back in their era with [David] Pearson and Petty, I could compete with those guys.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s very respectful and I appreciate that. I am honored he said that. I feel I\u2019d like to think the same way that I could do it. It doesn\u2019t matter. It\u2019s a different time and place. Overall, excited to just continue on and keep winning.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – At this point, NASCAR history properly teed-up, Kyle Busch is simply ready to buckle up, fire up, and hopefully raise a 200th trophy up. The 33-year old has combined to win 199 times in NASCAR\u2019s three national series \u2013 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup, Xfinity and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":24203,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[401,399,59,16],"class_list":["post-24177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-auto-club-400","tag-auto-club-speedway","tag-kyle-busch","tag-nascar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/MENCS_AutoClub_KyBusch_031519.jpg?fit=3058%2C2036","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-6hX","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24177"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24210,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24177\/revisions\/24210"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}