{"id":18439,"date":"2018-05-29T15:55:00","date_gmt":"2018-05-29T20:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=18439"},"modified":"2018-05-31T18:14:20","modified_gmt":"2018-05-31T23:14:20","slug":"kyle-buschs-historic-feat-shows-hes-in-a-class-by-himself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2018\/05\/29\/kyle-buschs-historic-feat-shows-hes-in-a-class-by-himself\/","title":{"rendered":"Kyle Busch\u2019s historic feat shows he\u2019s in a class by himself"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – As Kyle Busch<\/strong> excitedly climbed out of his No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota in the minutes following his dominant victory late Sunday night at Charlotte Motor Speedway, he had already mentally checked off that last box on his \u201cto-win\u201d list of Monster Energy NASCAR Cup<\/a> venues to conquer.<\/p>\n

He has now won at every single track where the Cup Series currently races \u2013 the only driver in history to accomplish such a feat.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Kyle Busch, driver of the #18 M&M’s Red White & Blue Toyota, celebrates with the checkered flag after winning the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway on May 27, 2018 in Charlotte, North Carolina. (Photo by Sarah Crabill\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cI think everybody in this sport and everybody that follows the support, I think everybody realizes how hard that is, and to be able to accomplish that, when you think about road racing at Watkins Glen, Michigan, Indy, all the different places we go and the different racetracks, I think everybody just around the sport really appreciates how hard that is,” Busch\u2019s team owner Joe Gibbs said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor him to do that, particularly Kyle is young, and for him to be able to get that done at this age I think is special. I think everybody around the sport really appreciates it.\u201d<\/p>\n

It also means Busch must be creative on collecting and displaying winner\u2019s trophies. Sunday\u2019s may be Busch\u2019s first Cup trophy at Charlotte, but it\u2019s his 188th NASCAR national series trophy \u2013 including 47 Monster Energy Series wins, 91 Xfinity Series wins and 50 Camping World Truck Series wins.<\/p>\n

Only one man has more national series wins: NASCAR\u2019s \u201cKing\u201d and inaugural class Hall of Famer Richard Petty, who won 200 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series races before retiring at the age of 54.<\/p>\n

Busch just celebrated his 33rd birthday earlier this month.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Kyle Busch, driver of the #18 M&M’s Red White & Blue Toyota, celebrates in victory lane after winning the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway on May 27, 2018 in Charlotte, North Carolina. (Photo by Brian Lawdermilk\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

Think about how much competitive time he has remaining to challenge and eclipse Petty\u2019s mark. And he\u2019s doing it racing against, arguably, the deepest field of accomplished drivers ever. He\u2019s beaten retired greats from newly-named NASCAR Hall of Famer Jeff Gordon who is a 93-time Cup winner and four-time series champ to three-time Cup champion Tony Stewart.<\/p>\n

And Busch\u2019s current weekly competition includes seven-time champion Jimmie Johnson, former champs Martin Truex Jr., Brad Keselowski and Matt Kenseth, to perennial title favorites such as Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin to a long list of eager and superbly talented up-and-comers from Chase Elliott to Kyle Larson.<\/p>\n

This season, in particular, Busch\u2019s primary trophy challenge has come from 2014 Cup champion Kevin Harvick, who is pairing with Busch in an absolutely epic \u201cone-up\u201d contest. Harvick has five wins, Busch has four and three times they have finished a variation of first-and-second place in a race.<\/p>\n

These two past Cup champions have absolutely dominated the first third of the season, combining to lead 1,695 of the 4,302 laps of competition \u2013 an amazing 39 percent.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s perhaps fitting that Harvick is next behind Busch on the current-driver list of winners. He has 103 victories in NASCAR\u2019s premier series (42 in Cup, 47 in Xfinity and 14 in trucks.)<\/p>\n

Interestingly, both Busch and Harvick have proven to be streak-y victors in 2018. Harvick began the year with three straight wins \u2013 at Atlanta, Las Vegas and Phoenix. Busch answered with three straight at Texas, Bristol and Richmond.  Harvick responded winning back-to-back at Dover and Kansas \u2013 heading into Charlotte.<\/p>\n

Busch finished second to Harvick at Las Vegas and Phoenix and Harvick finished second to Busch at Texas.<\/p>\n

The impressive 69-point total separating Busch over second-place Logano in the Cup standings would normally be the topic of conversation for racing observers. But it\u2019s the way Busch has separated himself that makes the storyline compelling and the intense trophy race between Harvick and Busch so exciting.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a win-win situation. Kind of like Busch and Harvick.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – As Kyle Busch excitedly climbed out of his No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota in the minutes following his dominant victory late Sunday night at Charlotte Motor Speedway, he had already mentally checked off that last box on his \u201cto-win\u201d list of Monster Energy NASCAR Cup […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":18286,"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":[59,16],"class_list":["post-18439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-kyle-busch","tag-nascar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/MENCS_Flag_052718.jpg?fit=2922%2C1948&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-4Np","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18439"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18439\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18441,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18439\/revisions\/18441"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}