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Nascar and Racing

Will Kyle Busch's 'All or Nothing' Attitude Pay Off?

Posted Jul 23, 2009 2:50PM By Holly Cain (RSS feed)

Filed Under: Kyle Busch, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Chase for the Sprint Cup

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Kyle BuschINDIANAPOLIS -- With ESPN taking over the NASCAR Sprint Cup broadcast schedule beginning this week with the AllState 400 at the Brickyard at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the network's veteran analysts, Dr. Jerry Punch, Andy Petree and Dale Jarrett shared some of their thoughts on the season to date.

In addition to the obvious marquee story lines -- 50-year old Mark Martin winning and Tony Stewart's team a championship contender out of the box -- the ESPN crew was candid about the surprises on the other end of the spectrum, specifically whether three-time race winner Kyle Busch, 24, will even make The Chase.

"Nobody ever would have thought that that he would go in there and not make it,'' said Petree, the late Dale Earnhardt's championship crew chief. "He's struggled when he did get in the Chase the past couple of years, and that's not a surprise. But the fact is he's actually got a chance of not making it, and I think there's trouble brewing over there."

"This is a gut wrenching time for them as a team,'' Petree said. "You're going to see what kind of character they have these next seven races to get into the Chase. I think it's going to be very iffy that he gets in the Chase this year because of the way that car has performed, and now when you have this kind of a problem brewing, it can actually get worse."

The highly-talented but equally volatile Busch has had a season of extremes -- three Cup wins, but eight finishes outside the top-20 in the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. He was ranked as high as fourth in the championship in March, winning twice in three weeks.

But while he holds an impressive 212-point lead atop the Nationwide Series championship, it's been a rough summer on the Cup side. He's in the midst of a points free fall, dropping to 10th place in the standings with only one top-10 finish in the last seven races.

He holds only a 13-point advantage over 13th place Greg Biffle in the Chase standings. Only 129 points separate him and 15th place Clint Bowyer, with seven races left to set the 12-driver Chase field.

"Kyle Busch is a tremendous talent but I think his win or nothing, 'we're going to go for broke' attitude about each and every race could put him in a precarious position in trying to keep himself inside the Chase because that's his mentality that all he wants to do is win the race,'' said 1999 Cup champion Jarrett.

"We've seen him be extremely disappointed about finishing second whether it's in the Nationwide Series or the Cup Series and that's a great attitude to have, but it can also be your downfall too if you're in a situation like this where you're having to try to protect just a little bit.

"And to be quite honest you look at the next two races, these next two tracks aren't his best. The flat tracks seem to be the ones that have given that race team more problems over the last 18 months than any others. I would look at him as the one person that is capable of winning every week, but he's also capable of having some bad finishes and falling out."

Busch does have a good record here at Indy, three top-10s in four Brickyard starts. His worst finish was 15th place last year. And he's coming off a Nationwide Series win last Saturday during a rare Cup Series off-week.

Thanks to the new championship format, this is the crunch time before the crunch time and Busch has got to perform under pressure before he's considered a championship contender -- a feat maybe more difficult for him than racking up race wins.

We'll see. And soon.

Tags: ESPN, Indianapolis+Motor+Speedway, IndianapolisMotorSpeedway, Kyle+Busch, KyleBusch

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