Associated Press
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. ó Maybe the biggest reason Kyle Busch wants to get the 2009 season started is so he won’t have to keep answering the same questions.
No, he doesn’t consider NASCAR’s 2008 Sprint Cup season a failure just because he and his No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota team fell flat on their collective faces in the Chase for the championship.
Yes, he believes he can contend this year.
Even so, the 23-year-old Busch acknowledges he feels some trepidation as he heads toward the season-opening Daytona 500 on Sunday.
“I’m anxious to get going, but not really,” Busch said last week. “I would like to get it going and start running well again and start contending and winning races. But I’m not so anxious to get it going because I’m not sure if that’s going to happen right away, or what’s going to happen.”
Last year, his first with JGR and the team’s first year racing Toyotas, Busch outshone veteran teammates Tony Stewart ó now driving for his own team ó and Denny Hamlin.
The youngster was the surprise of the season, winning eight of the first 22 Cup events and looking like a surefire championship contender.
It seemed like Busch could do little wrong in any race car or truck as he added 10 wins in the second-tier Nationwide Series and three in NASCAR’s truck series ó an amazing total of 21 victories in a single season.
But, with all that success, the enduring recollection of Busch from 2008 will be his disappearing act in the 10-race Chase. He finished what should have been a landmark season with four top-10s and no wins in the last 10 races and wound up 10th in the standings.
The youngster pulls no punches when asked what happened.
“We left the championship out there, that’s for sure,” he said. “(The) car fell apart in the last 10 races, and you can’t have that. … Overall, it was a good year. We made the Chase, but we wanted to run well in the Chase, contend and be there for the championship, which we weren’t able to do at the end of the year.
“That was a bit frustrating, and the Nationwide stuff and the truck stuff, that all kept running real well throughout the year,” Busch continued. “I felt like there were some more wins that we could have had in each of those (series), but missed out on. Same with the Cup side. There was a few that we missed out on, but there was some that we didn’t deserve, so it all equals out in time, I think.”