Kyle Busch Vs The Field—Chase for the Cup Has Only One Outcome

Before I begin, put your hatred and disdain for Kyle Busch aside for just a moment.Yes, he’s arrogant. Yes, he’s unlikable, but boy, is he one heck of a racecar driver! Following his victory at the Centurion Boats at the Glen on Sunday, his eighth of the season, Busch clinched the no. 1 seed in NASCAR’s version of the playoffs.

Last year, NASCAR restructured the Chase for the Sprint Cup format, awarding the top spot to the driver(s) that has the most wins after Richmond, the last event before the final 10 races. The driver with the second-most wins would be ranked second, and so on.

Busch is so far ahead in the wins department that he could go winless the next four races (I know that’s hard to imagine!) and still at least have a share of the top seed in the Chase with Carl Edwards. Who is second to Busch in wins this season, with only half as many (four).

Looking back at the first four years of the Chase for the Sprint Cup, when a driver is ranked first prior to the 10-race sprint, his chances of winning the championship look pretty darn good. Two of the previous four champions held the number-one spot going into the Chase—Tony Stewart in 2005 and Jimmie Johnson in 2007.

It’s also worth mentioning that 2007 was the first year that NASCAR implemented the "whoever-wins-the-most-races-gets-the-most-points" rule—Johnson led the league with six W’s before the Chase began, and went on to win the championship for the second season in a row, finishing out with 10 victories.

Will Busch experience a similar fate? Something keeps telling me "yes". With a whopping eight wins in 2008, there’s no type of track that Busch has not won on. He’s gotten it done on the restrictor-plate tracks, winning at both Daytona and Talladega. He’s visited Victory Lane at the “cookie-cutter,” one-and-a-half mile ovals—Atlanta and Chicago. He’s tamed some of the toughest tracks on the circuit—Darlington and Dover.

Most recently, Busch elevated himself into “road course ringer” status, scoring victories at Infineon and Watkins Glen, the two road courses on the Cup schedule. Additionally, with Sunday’s win at the Glen, Busch became the first driver in NASCAR history to win on threeroad courses in a single season—besides winning at Infineon and Watkins Glen, Busch also won a Nationwide series race in Mexico back in April, yet another winding road course.

For the other 42 drivers out there every weekend, it’s pretty difficult to beat a guy who wins like that. With that being said, it’s not like Busch has won eight races here and there and had bouts with inconsistency when he isn’t winning—he has been flat-out dominating, leading a mind-boggling 1,131 laps on the season. He has also scored 13 top-fives in 22 races and led the Sprint Cup standings for all but five

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