Kyle Busch – NASCAR’s New Bad Boy

Since the dawn of the sport, NASCAR has always had “bad guys” around the track…

Throughout every era of stock car racing, it seems that there remains a villain, who not only rubs fan the wrong way with their attitude or style of driving, but continues to win, win, and win agian.

There was “Jaws,” “The Intimidator” and “Wonder Boy,” and Darrell Waltrip, Dale Earnhardt and Jeff Gordon earned those nicknames with hard driving, remarkable success and their personalities.

Now, Sprint Cup Series has found its latest poster “bad boy” – “Kid Conceited”….or so it would seem.

Kyle Busch is a driver race fans love to hate, and hate to love.

“I’d rather people dislike me for who I am than like me for someone I’m not,” Busch said. “Everyone wants to be cheered, but I can certainly handle it if I’m not because I know I go out there and put out my best effort each time I race.”

Busch consistently wins at such a young age, and his contemporaries cant match that.  He is a young rockstar climbing to the top, and his fellow drivers are looking to knock him back down into his rightful place.

Having 8 Sprint Cup victories tis season, he has gained a serious points lead, with 242 points seperating him from the 2nd place Carl Edwards.

Jimmie Johnson, a former teammate of Busch’s, holds him in high regard…

“I think it’s an amazing story, what he has done.  I worked with him as a teammate and I know he’s a special, special talent. I told him a couple of years ago, ‘Once you figure out how to win you’re not going to stop, but you’ve got to stop knocking the right side off your cars, crashing in practice and taking unnecessary risks.’

“He’s figured that out this year and he’s been on fire.”

It’s not just the Sprint Cup series that Busch has had success in this season.

Having won at Watkins Glen last weekend, Busch now has a record 16 wins this season amongst NASCAR’s top 3 series, Sprint Cup, Nationwide, and Craftsman Trucks.

No one can deny Busch’s ability, including former teammates Jeff Gordon and Johnson.  Both of them were overtaken by Busch during restarts late in the race 2 weekends in a row.  While they shrugged off the matter, either could deny that Busch had simply made a bold move that neither of them could counter.

The fact is that once you truly learn how to win a championship, you recognize it and seek to maintain that ability.  It seems Busch is beginning to come into his own, and will remain a tough competitor to beat from here on out.  

While some might not like his arrogance, NASCAR has been running on empty when it comes to bad guys.  Certainly, the passion that these characters bring out in fans provides the sport with some added excitement that it needs to thrive, but what makes Busch so special is not that he is quickly becoming the new bad boy, but that he is currently NASCAR’s most talented driver.

After all, you don’t have the honor of being booed if you’re not within booing range. And booing range doesn’t extend much past Victory Lane.

Gordon seems to not have much of a problem with Busch’s new found stardom…

“I think we’ve been missing the good guy, bad guy,” Gordon said. “Earnhardt was sort of the tough guy, and I was sort of the young, clean-cut kid. It’s a little different scenario now. But still it’s a rivalry. It’s opposites. It’s somebody everybody can base an opinion on, and that’s what our fans need.

“To be an avid fan, you’ve got to have somebody to love and somebody to hate.”

So as Busch keeps winning, fans will continue to love to hate him and hate to love him.  However, none can deny his talent as well as the added fire he seems to be bringing back to the sport.