Kyle Busch\u2019s NASCAR wins record will never be broken.<\/p>\n
Busch, 41, died Thursday<\/a> after he contracted sepsis while dealing with a case of pneumonia.<\/a> The two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion recorded 234 wins across NASCAR\u2019s Cup Series, second-tier O\u2019Reilly Auto Parts Series and third-tier Craftsman Truck Series over a career that spanned 26 seasons.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Busch\u2019s wins mark dwarfs that of any other active driver and almost any other driver in NASCAR history. Only Richard Petty, who won 200 Cup Series races throughout his career, along with one in NASCAR\u2019s long-defunct convertible series, is close to Busch\u2019s career wins mark. And while Petty\u2019s 200 wins all came in the Cup Series and have long served as the NASCAR gold standard for excellence, there\u2019s a strong case to be made that Busch\u2019s record deserves to stand alongside Petty\u2019s.<\/p>\n How Richard Petty got his wins<\/p>\n 200 wins in 1,184 Cup Series starts<\/p>\n First win: Charlotte, 1960<\/p>\n Petty has long held the title of greatest NASCAR driver ever, thanks to his seven Cup Series championships to go with his 200 wins. Only Dale Earnhardt and Jimmie Johnson have as many titles, and David Pearson, with 105 victories, is the only other driver with more than 100 Cup Series wins.<\/p>\n The man known as \u201cThe King\u201d posted some absurd stats during his career. In 1967, he won 27 of 48 races while finishing in the top 10 in all but eight of his starts. Four years later, Petty won 21 of the 46 races he entered and had 41 top-10 finishes. Overall, Petty had 555 top-five finishes and a top-10 rate of more than 60% throughout his career.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n However, there are a few caveats to Petty\u2019s record, especially when compared to modern NASCAR. (The sanctioning body defines its modern era as being from 1972 to the present day.) Before 1972, NASCAR\u2019s schedule at the top level was a hodgepodge. During that 1967 Grand National series season, 15 races were held in June and July alone, with many coming just days apart from one another.<\/p>\n Petty was the only driver to race in 48 races; just 10 competed in 40 or more races. James Hylton finished second to Petty in the standings by competing in 46 races and scoring 26 top-fives while never finishing on the lead lap. The competition in the nascent days of NASCAR wasn\u2019t exactly fierce.<\/p>\n But Petty was still incredibly good once the modern era began and NASCAR\u2019s slimmed-down Cup Series schedule took shape. He won 13 of 30 races in 1975 on the way to his sixth title, a year after winning 10 races for his fifth. His seventh title came in 1979, when he finished fifth at Ontario to slip past Darrell Waltrip by 11 points.<\/p>\n How Busch got his wins<\/p>\n 234 wins in 1,313 NASCAR starts<\/p>\n 63 Cup wins in 762 starts<\/p>\n 102 O\u2019Reilly wins in 367 starts<\/p>\n 69 Truck wins in 184 starts<\/p>\n First win: Richmond, 2004 (O\u2019Reilly)<\/p>\n Last win: Dover, 2026 (Truck)<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Busch ranks ninth all-time among Cup Series wins leaders and is the winningest driver in O\u2019Reilly and Truck Series history. He has more than twice as many wins as second-place Mark Martin (49) in the O\u2019Reilly Series and 18 more than second-place Ron Hornaday in the Truck Series.<\/p>\n From 2010 through 2013, Busch won 33 O\u2019Reilly Series races. It\u2019s a remarkable achievement made even more so when you remember that Busch went winless in 2012. That year, he drove for his own Kyle Busch Motorsports team as it moved up to NASCAR\u2019s second tier instead of for his longtime Cup Series team, Joe Gibbs Racing.<\/p>\n All but 21 of Busch\u2019s Truck Series wins came while he was driving for his own team. After he didn\u2019t win in any of his three starts in the series in 2012, Busch won at least one Truck Series race for the next 14 years \u2014 and won all five of his starts in 2019.<\/p>\n Overall, Busch posted four seasons with at least 10 or more wins in the O\u2019Reilly Series and had two eight-win seasons in the Cup Series. His first eight-win season came in 2008, when he finished 10th in NASCAR\u2019s Chase. Ten years later, Busch won eight races again, but he finished fourth among the four title contenders in NASCAR\u2019s winner-take-all championship race.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Like Petty in many of his pre-modern-era races, Busch was in top-tier equipment against drivers with far less talent and far less equipment in many of his second- and third-level wins. That\u2019s indisputable. But even in that context, Busch\u2019s win rate of better than 30% in the Truck Series is staggering.<\/p>\n Why no one will get close anytime soon \u2026 or ever<\/p>\n Among all drivers, Kevin Harvick ranks a distant third to Busch and Petty with 121 wins across all three series. Among active drivers, Busch\u2019s lead was colossal.<\/p>\n Denny Hamlin is now the active leader in wins across all series with 81, while Brad Keselowski has 76. Both drivers are in their 40s ,and in Hamlin\u2019s case, the 2027 season might be his last. Neither races regularly below the Cup Series any longer. They probably won\u2019t be adding a bunch more wins to their totals.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Joey Logano is third among active drivers with 69 wins, and Kyle Larson is fourth with 55. Both are in their 30s, but they\u2019re also not running many lower-tier races. There isn\u2019t an active driver who is likely to sniff Busch and Petty in total wins.<\/p>\n The main reason is pretty simple. It\u2019s tougher to dominate the Cup Series in the 2020s than it was in Petty\u2019s day. And as Cup drivers like Busch were dominating the O\u2019Reilly and Truck Series, NASCAR moved to institute race limits for Cup drivers in the lower series. The current limit is 10 O\u2019Reilly Series races and eight Truck races per season for veteran drivers. For the previous five seasons, experienced Cup drivers were limited to just five O\u2019Reilly races per season.<\/p>\n Drivers simply don\u2019t have the opportunities Busch did in the 2010s. In 2009, Busch ran the full Cup and O\u2019Reilly schedule along with 18 Truck Series races. He started 89 of a possible 96 races.<\/p>\n But even if NASCAR immediately loosened its race restrictions and allowed Cup drivers to compete with the frequency that Busch did, no one is going to win like he did, either. He was NASCAR\u2019s unicorn, and his wins record will always reflect that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kyle Busch\u2019s NASCAR wins record will never be broken. 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