Kyle Busch: Why His 200 Wins Would Be More Impressive Than Richard Petty's

This weekend, four Sprint Cup drivers have a shot at winning $1 million in the Sprint Summer Showdown at Atlanta. Of those drivers, three—Paul Menard, Marcos Ambrose and Brad Keselowski—were unlikely picks to join the program.

But of the four drivers to win the last five races and assert eligibility, one was completely predictable: Kyle Busch.

Busch, who earned his way in by scoring a victory at Michigan, now has 23 career Sprint Cup victories. He's also got 29 in the Camping World Truck Series and set an all-time record in the Nationwide Series by taking his 50th win at Bristol last weekend.

That's a total of 102 victories, putting him third all-time across the board in NASCAR's national touring series. Richard Petty is first with 200, while David Pearson ranks second with 106.

Some, however, don't think that if Busch ever scores 200 combined wins, it will be as impressive as what Petty did.

Petty, ever the assertive and controversial analyst on SPEED's NASCAR RaceDay, dismissed the value of Busch's potential earlier this year, saying that it doesn't matter unless they're 200 Sprint Cup wins.

Well, let me tell you something. Not all of Petty's Grand National wins (the name of Sprint Cup at the time he was around) were particularly impressive, either.

1967 was Petty's best season, a year in which he started 48 of 49 races (the Twin 125s before the Daytona 500 counted for points, and drivers could only race in one of them, meaning 48 was the maximum amount of starts) and won 27.

But during that time, no driver ever attempted the full schedule—in fact, only 10 drivers that year attempted 40 or more races—and 22 of the 49 races featured less than 30 cars. Among those were the first three races of Petty's record-setting 10-race win streak.

Petty also benefited from an era where fewer regular teams had a chance at winning. The teams with the money behind them (e.g. Petty's) were going to take most races, just as in Formula 1.

Speaking of Formula 1, great international drivers still had a shot at coming in and taking victories as well; Mario Andretti won the 1967 Daytona 500, for example.

As for Busch, he's facing top-caliber competition, week in and week out, in all three series.

Thanks to NASCAR's growth across America as a spectator sport, there's a lot more money in each of its national touring series, meaning many more teams have the ability to take race wins. We've seen that this year in Sprint Cup, as many drivers have taken their first career victories.

In a more universal sense, it just means that races across all three series are much more competitive than they used to be in the 1960s.

Busch's Truck starts are most comparable to Petty's wins against fields of 30 or less, but even then, he's usually competing against strong fields that include drivers like Kevin Harvick, Ron Hornaday and longtime Truck competitors with much more focus on that series.

Nationwide has been plagued with Sprint Cup drivers double-dipping since Harvick ran both full schedules in 2001, but what that does is basically give Busch two opportunities every week to beat Sprint Cup fields. He's competing with Keselowski, Harvick, Carl Edwards, Joey Logano and dozens of others with extended Sprint Cup experience on any given weekend.

Think of it like a touring car race weekend over in Europe. There's a short sprint race and a much longer feature race, but both share equal value as wins. Those fields are of the same caliber because they're the same drivers.

With the amount of top drivers who run in each series these days, Busch's dominance is comparable to that system.

No, the real issue has nothing to do with how many of Busch's career wins come in one series versus another. It has everything to do, however, with how many championships he wins. He'll never be able to win one in Nationwide or Trucks again, at least as long as NASCAR's current "points in one series only" rule stands and he doesn't compete in full schedules in the smaller series.

Right now, his lone title came in Nationwide in 2009.

But if Busch can win, let's say, four Sprint Cups over the rest of his career—a career that should probably last well into the 2020s—it might be even more impressive than Petty's seven, given the caliber of the competition.

The only driver who could touch Busch at that point would be Jimmie Johnson. And that's a battle we may get to continue enjoying for a very long time.