I Kid You Not: To Be The Best, You Need To Beat The Best

I realized something really important this weekend—while watching the NASCAR race, as a matter of fact.
I love ranting, especially about sports.
This particular rant centered on Kyle Busch, the brash, cocky, “checkers-or-wreckers” driver of the No. 18 Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing in the Sprint Cup Series.
The younger Busch (Kyle’s older brother, Kurt, also races in NASCAR’s top series) made history this weekend by winning all three races—the Craftsman Truck Series race on Thursday night, the Nationwide Series race on Friday night and the Sprint Cup Series race on Saturday night—the first such sweep in NASCAR history.
For one thing, I was already in a bad mood because my driver, Jimmie Johnson, got wrecked by Juan Pablo Montoya after a restart less than halfway through the race. And for another, I really, really don’t like Kyle Busch. He’s cocky, he never, ever admits that anything is his fault (unless it’s in a sulky, “well I guess since so-and-so is never wrong, I guess it must be my fault” sort of way) and he tweaks the last nerve of even the most easy-going drivers on the circuit (such as Jeff Burton, Mark Martin and Joey Logano).
Basically, he’s trying to be Dale Earnhardt, but instead of coming across as the stone-faced, ice-water-in-his-veins intimidator, he comes across as a whining, petulant little child who probably just needs a good nap.
So, as the ESPN commentators waxed poetic (or whatever they call it when Dale Jarrett and Andy Petrie yammer on and on into the night) about Busch making history, all I wanted to do was calmly point out (read: shout at the top of my lungs) that the only reason Busch “made history” is because he insists on racing against inferior opponents every single week.
Here’s the thing, if you’re unfamiliar with how NASCAR’s various series work, compared to the farm system in Major League Baseball—the Sprint Cup Series is like the major leagues, the Nationwide Series is like AAA, and the Craftsman Truck Series is like AA. Or if we compare it to football, Sprint Cup is like the NFL, Nationwide is like college football, and the truck series is like high school. The point is, each of these series is there to serve the purpose of allowing younger drivers to gain racing experience in a more challenging environment than the local track can offer, while simultaneously allowing older drivers to continue racing, thereby also giving the young drivers access to veterans who can teach them a lot of valuable racing information. It’s a great system for maximizing the young talent coming up the Sprint Cup series.
Except that drivers like Busch (and Dale Earnhardt Jr., and Carl Edwards, and Clint Bowyer, and Kasey Kahne, and Elliot Sadler, and Ryan Newman) insist on driving in the Nationwide Series (and some in the truck series) to…I don’t know, gain more experience? That’s the standard excuse, but you have to think that this “seat time” is a little overrated, given that only two of those drivers (Edwards and Kahne) finished in the top 12 in the standings last year.
I’m not saying these guys are all egomaniacs or anything, but (as someone who enjoys creating myself and my friends in Madden on my Xbox 360, then rolling up victories of more than 100 points on my opponents) I have to admit that there’s something really fun about going up against an inferior opponent and utterly destroying him. It makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, like a cuddly baby bunny stiff-arming a linebacker to the ground and diving into the endzone.
But there is definitely some kind of ego wrapped up in a decision like this, because it’s not like you see Adrian Gonzalez flying up to Portland to play for the Beavers and see some more pitches before he steps in against the Dodgers. Nor do you see Drew Brees fly back to Purdue to lead the Boilermakers on Saturdays before he straps on that Saints helmet on Sundays. Nowhere else in sports do you see a major-league level athlete purposely compete against minor-league opponents other than in NASCAR.
With most of these drivers, it’s probably a combination of wanting to have more success and just not knowing what else to do with their time. One thing I’ve learned about racecar drivers over the years is that when they’re not racing, they’re thinking about racing. And when they’re not thinking about racing, they’re dead. So these guys probably just like racing.
And I’m sure that’s part of it with Busch as well, but the spoiled, whiny kid I hear in the post-race interviews tells me that he just wants to be better than other people, even if he has to take on someone who is decidedly not his own size, metaphorically speaking.
Personally, I think NASCAR should consider some kind of rule to regulate which drivers are allowed to drive in which series, for the good of the sport. If you think about it, if the seven drivers I just mentioned who drive full-time in both the Sprint Cup and Nationwide series had to decide which series to race in, that would open up seven seats to younger drivers who could use the added experience before they made the jump to the Sprint Cup Series.
Here’s what I would suggest—allow a driver to run in no more than two series at a time, and after he has been run a full schedule in the Sprint Cup Series for three consecutive years, he is no longer eligible to race in any other series, unless he stops racing full time in the Sprint Cup Series. That way, once you get to the big leagues, you can’t take your talents down to the minor leagues and dominate.
Which brings up my final point—these guys should be dominating the Nationwide series (and especially the truck series)! Kyle Busch is an elite stock car driver in the prime of his career! The fact that he doesn’t win every truck race and every Nationwide race should be more of a point of personal shame than the elation brought about by winning every now and then against what are essentially kids still learning the sport and old guys out for a good ol’ time at the track.
Perhaps it’s a symptom of our generation—look at what LeBron James just did, for example. Instead of wanting to carry a team and prove he’s the best basketball player of his era, he decided he wanted to beat everyone else, so he teamed up with his talented buddies to tip the scales in his favor. A number of writers have pointed out that James is like that annoying guy who comes out to play a pickup game, makes sure he stacks the teams with the best guys there, then trash talks you the whole game. At some point, it became more fun to win as the beneficiary of a loaded team than it is impressive to work really hard and be the best at something because you earned it.
The other side of that coin is that there are still, thankfully, a lot of athletes out there who go for glory with everything they have. Athletes like Brees (who went to New Orleans, brought a team and a region back to life with his energy, enthusiasm and talent, and won the Super Bowl), or Albert Pujols (who led the St. Louis Cardinals to the World Series title back in 2006), or Sidney Crosby (who won the Stanley Cup with the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2009) show us that there is still hope for athletes who work hard, learn from failure, and ascend to the pinnacle of their sport.
Kyle Busch could learn a few things from these guys.
As always, if you have any thoughts on this topic, or any topic, be sure to write to us at sports@valleycenter.com and tell us all about it.