Despite all his victories in NASCAR Sprint Cup, Kyle Busch faces missing the Chase for the Sprint Cup.
Five years ago, NASCAR officials tweaked the championship rules, instituting a 10-race playoff for ten drivers (now 12) to bump up the drama going into the homestretch for the Series’ title.
Although those rules, themselves, had minor modifications the principle is -- consistency rules. Compare it to the baseball batter who swings for home runs, gets many, but also strikes out a lot.
Kyle Busch is a NASCAR home-run hitter with four wins, tied for leading the league with Mark Martin, but, he also has four finishes of below 30th including two DNF’s. As a result going into the 26th and last race of the “regular season,” at Richmond, he’s 14th in the standings, 37 points behind Matt Kenseth the provisional last Chaser.
"Unfortunately we haven't had some of the best cars this year,” Kyle said in a teleconference.
“I haven't done some of the best driving I've needed to do this year. But we're trying to get back on par with the way we need to do things. If this weekend is a success, we win the race, still don't make the Chase, we did all we could”.
Will he key off Kenseth, or archrival Brian Vickers (who is only 20 points behind Kenseth)?
“There's really no point in going through that frustration and trying to figure out where those guys are. You just see what it boils down to at the end of the day,” he said.
photo:Philippe Champoux - Auto123.com
Five years ago, NASCAR officials tweaked the championship rules, instituting a 10-race playoff for ten drivers (now 12) to bump up the drama going into the homestretch for the Series’ title.
Although those rules, themselves, had minor modifications the principle is -- consistency rules. Compare it to the baseball batter who swings for home runs, gets many, but also strikes out a lot.
Kyle Busch is a NASCAR home-run hitter with four wins, tied for leading the league with Mark Martin, but, he also has four finishes of below 30th including two DNF’s. As a result going into the 26th and last race of the “regular season,” at Richmond, he’s 14th in the standings, 37 points behind Matt Kenseth the provisional last Chaser.
"Unfortunately we haven't had some of the best cars this year,” Kyle said in a teleconference.
“I haven't done some of the best driving I've needed to do this year. But we're trying to get back on par with the way we need to do things. If this weekend is a success, we win the race, still don't make the Chase, we did all we could”.
Will he key off Kenseth, or archrival Brian Vickers (who is only 20 points behind Kenseth)?
“There's really no point in going through that frustration and trying to figure out where those guys are. You just see what it boils down to at the end of the day,” he said.
photo:Philippe Champoux - Auto123.com