Michael Schumacher made his mark as one of the best drivers ever (I hear ya Senna fans) by driving a piece of sh!t Ferrari in 1996. It wasn't until then, that fans realized that he was worth 2-5 tenths just strapping in. I think that NASCAR is more brutal than that, but I do believe that Kyle Busch is worth two to three tenths. Look at him relative to the competition and look at him relative to his teammates. To not appreciate that is to miss out on enjoying a tremendous talent. Kyle has put Toyota on the map. There are no manufacturers titles or drivers titles (including MTJ) without him. Period. Much like Schumacher, Kyle forced Toyota and TRD to raise the bar. Yes, the Camry is good, but it isn't what it is without Kyle Busch.
I completely agree.
My point is that this isn't exclusively a Kyle Busch characteristic. He isnt the only cup driver who could find an extra tenth or 2.
Remember 2015 at Texas? Brad leads 300+ of the 325 laps. No one stayed within a second for longer than 2 laps. JJ ran at best 3 all day, and somehow found an extra 3 tenths that final run.
I remember the race thread, on this site. People were saying things like, "48 still the best driver in NASCAR" "if it was any other driver, Brad wins that race". Jimmie's entire career is being worth 2+ tenths in clutch situations.
2016 at Kansas. Carl Edwards has the race locked up, Harvick gets a killer restart. And manages to gain a 10th, relative to the previous run. Matching laptimes vs Carl.
Tony Stewart did this countlessly too.
It absolutely a sign of Kyle's talent, and to deny it would be absurd. At this point, he may be the best in the garage, given we are in the middle of a turnover. But Kyle's fans tend to talk about this as if its something Kyle has that other drivers don't. The fact of the matter is that for 10+ years of his career, there were two other drivers who also posessed this quality while putting up similar, and superior numbers.
Kyle is one of the best raw talents, but he is absolutely not the only driver today who can gain you an extra tenth or two, and most certainly not the only driver of the last 15+ years to do so. That's all. Kyle is as good as any other all time great shy of maybe 5-10 drivers who could do the same thing. Acknowledging other drivers were just as reliable for extra speed is no knock against Kyle at all.
Its just that when you are as good as he is, he is gonna naturally start to be measured against his contemporaries and superiors which itself is ratified air for someone only 34.
Kyle has longevity on his side which is amazing...hes gonna break some long term records, and starts and put up a lot of wins. During the first 10+ years of his career he was only outdriven by TWO drivers in arguably the most competitive era in the history of the sport. One of ehich is arguably the GOAT of NASCAR, and the other is a 3x champ, who has won championships in every professional racing series he's been in, is regarded as one of the best race car drivers ever across the board, and arguably a top 10 nascar driver all time. The latter of which he will probably have a superior career to.
Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk