September 11, 2008
By Doug Demmons
Kyle Busch will be the 2008 NASCAR Sprint Cup champion. That’s my prediction.
That plus $1 will buy you a 20-ounce Vault soda at most convenience stores.
That’s what most NASCAR predictions are worth. Not much.
The Chase, however, is pretty easy to predict. It’s usually either the top seed or the No. 2 who ends up with the hardware.
This year let’s call it a four-man race -- Busch, Carl Edwards, Jimmie Johnson and one of the other nine (take your pick) who will get hot for a few weeks before fading at the end.
But, in the end, Busch will win unless ...
Unless he beats himself, which he has demonstrated repeatedly he is capable of doing.
Take Richmond, for instance.
Busch, who was leading at the time, gets wrecked by Dale Earnhardt Jr. One hundred thousand people rose as one, spilling their beers and yelling themselves hoarse. Payback’s a you-know-what. Revenge is a dish best served cold. Etc. etc.
Junior Nation waited three months for that moment and the faithful whooped it up when it arrived.
Of course, Junior denied that it was intentional -- wink, wink, nudge, nudge. Who, me? Perish the thought. It was just one of those racin’ deals.
Junior couldn’t completely contain himself. Because even Junior could appreciate the irony -- Junior wrecks Busch at the same track that Busch wrecked him in May. Junior was leading the race in May; Busch was leading on Sunday. Junior was on the outside in May; Busch was on the outside on Sunday.
Yes, it was positively dripping with irony. If it wasn’t intentional, it should have been.
And listening to Busch after the race, you almost want to feel sorry for the guy. He didn’t climb out of the car ranting about how the 88 did him wrong. His crew didn’t run down pit road to rumble with Tony Eury Jr.’s boys.
Busch said he didn’t know exactly what happened, but it was probably just one of the racin’ things. He didn’t sound like a driver who had just been shoved into the wall while leading a race. Can you imagine Tony Stewart being so meek if someone had just dumped him?
Neither can I.
So maybe Busch was giving Junior Nation its pound of flesh -- OK, I wrecked Junior and now he wrecked me and now we’re even. Heck, if I were a manufacturer of black helicopters I’d suggest that maybe Busch came down on Junior intentionally, knowing he’d be wrecked but getting the monkey off his back.
That would be a tempting conspiracy theory except for one thing.
Elliott Sadler.
After Busch got wrecked by Junior and after his team repaired the damage and after he got back on the track, Busch had a little encounter with Elliott Sadler.
On TV it looked innocent enough. Could have been another one of those racin’ deals.
It wasn’t. Sadler wrecked him. Intentionally. On purpose.
“It was definitely payback,” Sadler said Tuesday on the Sirius Speedway radio show.
Seems that Busch was racing Sadler pretty hard and tried to turn him, at least according to Sadler. So, three or four laps later, Sadler returned the favor. You race me dirty, I race you dirty. It’s the Code of NASCAR.
Sadler said he had a little tete-a-tete with Busch after the race. He said he let Rowdy know that the Golden Rule is still in effect -- you race me dirty, I race you dirty. He said they came to an understanding.
Which might also explain why Busch was so contrite in post-race interviews. Or not. It’s hard to tell with Kyle Busch.
But it tells you something about Rowdy -- right after being wrecked by Junior and having 100K fans screaming for his head on a pole -- he’s trying to push Sadler out the way.
Busch haters will say this proves he is a punk. And they are correct.
But that’s sort of irrelevant. Because sometimes it doesn’t help to be a nice guy like Jeff Burton.
Sometimes, the punk wins. And this is one of those times.
Kyle Busch -- who apparently didn’t learn anything between encounters with Junior and Sadler -- is going to spend the next 10 races driving like his hair is on fire. He is either going to win the championship or trigger the most spectacular collapse since the Yankees blew a 3-0 lead against the Red Sox.
I’m betting on Busch -- because in the end talent usually wins. And this is the same guy who once won a truck race with just one hand on the steering wheel.
Of course, when Carl Edwards wins the title feel free to send me an email telling me what an idiot I am.
Doug Demmons is a writer and editor for the Birmingham News ~ he writes weekly auto racing columns ranging from NASCAR to open wheel to Formula One, local tracks and more... you can read Doug's columns online at Blog of Tommorow
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