The Kyle Busch Factor

Last night, Kyle Busch set his Toyota on cruise control and literally loafed his way to yet another win in the Nationwide series. After the race, a few other fans and I were chatting on the Dale Jr. Pit Board, and it was brought to my attention that there is a way we could all pay our proper respects to the New Boy Wonder! A fan who goes by the handle AlwaysL8 thought that instead of the usual beer cans being tossed onto the track, which I have never been a fan of, by the way, we should all present Kyle with our posteriors. Yes, a full moon salute, and I imagine if 150,000 fans all presented Wild Thing with such a salute, he might just faint on the spot. It's an interesting theory, to say the least. Providing Kyle with a little 'hind sight' might do wonders for his attitude in general.

Just in case he doesn't win again for a while, why wait until he does his burnout and his sarcastic bow? There's always driver introductions before the race, and we could all pay our respects then. What could please Wild Child more than to be presented with a full moon as tribute for his racing prowess?

It's a lot of fun to think about, but as usual there is a possibly more serious side to this little blog. Kyle literally cruised to victory last night, and as talented a driver as he is, he passed other cars on the track like he was driving a Ferrari through the Boston Marathon. We all get the point. Kyle's good, but is he really that good?

Last night, in the pre race show on ESPN2, analyst and Nationwide team owner Rusty Wallace brought up the point that the Toyota engines that Joe Gibbs Racing are using are making 22 more horsepower than his Chevrolet engines. From the way that Kyle Busch easily passed cars and drove away from the field, I'd say that figure might actually be on the conservative side. But 22 horsepower is plenty enough of an advantage in a sport where specs are checked to the thousandth of an inch.

Not too long ago, Nascar used to regularly review the statistics of each race, and if, say, the Chevrolets were winning a lot of races, they'd give the Fords some small advantage, such as a degree or two of rear spoiler. The new car just as the wing now, at least in the Cup series, but is it really right for Toyota to have such a blatant horspower advantage? I'm willing to give JGR head engine builder Mark Cronquist his due, but does Nascar really want one car manufacturer to flat out dominate the sport? Bill France Jr. would not have liked that very much, were he still with us. Brian France apparently doesn't have much of a problem with the advantage, and nobody is really in a position to tell Brian what to do, except when we as fans vote with our ticket money and TV viewership. I'll still watch all the Cup races, but I'm seriously thinking about skipping the Natiowide races for a while. Watching the 18 or 20 car win practically every race just gets so boring after a while. I watched last night's race, and saw the 18 car obviously in it's own zip code compared to the rest of the field. I'm not saying Kyle isn't a good driver, but as Clint Bowyer said last week, a monkey could win in those cars.

Racing at Chicagoland can be very exciting. I just hope the Cup race tonight is better than the Nationwide race last night.

Please remember to check out Garz Carz and his auction on E-bay! The information is in the post below.

And Kyle? this moon's for you.