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Kyle Busch Learned Brutal Lesson

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By MARTIN FENNELLY

mfennelly@tampatrib.com

Published: February 8, 2009

DAYTONA BEACH - Month after month, he was the king of the road. Win after win, he ruled over NASCAR, no matter what he was driving. If they'd put him on a unicycle he might have come in first.

Nobody could beat Kyle Busch.

He'd get out of his car after another victory and take a bow, mocking the crowd. Most in the crowd booed. Busch ate it up. Rarely has the black hat fit so well. It was all part of what seemed an inexorable run to his first Sprint Cup series championship, and at the tender age of 23, or at least as tender as Kyle Busch gets.

And then ...

"We lost and we lost big," Busch said.

It was gruesome. It all fell apart as soon as the Chase was on for the title. Mechanical problems in the first two races, all kinds of problems, again and again. Before Kyle Busch even began, he was done. He entered the Chase in first, he finished 10th. It was a monumental collapse. He watched Jimmie Johnson roar to a third consecutive title.

He lost and he lost big.

"That was pretty hard to swallow," Busch said at Daytona 500 media day.

It was a brutal lesson. Busch won eight Sprint Cup races. All summer long, he led by hundreds of points over Johnson, Carl Edwards and the rest. He couldn't lose. And then that's all he did. And that isn't easy when your name is Busch.

"Through my whole racing career, once I started, it was all about winning," Busch said. "That's the way I was brought up. It was all about going out there and getting the checkered flag and bringing home the trophy and kissing the pretty girl."

By most measures, Busch kissed more than his share of damsels in 2008. In his first year with Gibbs Racing - talk about pressure - he set a NASCAR record with 21 wins across NASCAR's three national series, with a whopping 10 wins in the Nationwide Series and three in the truck series. Along the way, he was the guy people loved to hate, and people had ample opportunity.

Busch ran 84 NASCAR races last season. He never stopped. And then ...

"Overall, it was a good year," Busch said. "Only, the things we wanted to do ... it was a failure."

That's where this season comes in. It began Saturday night with the Bud Shootout at Daytona, but it really starts with next Sunday's Daytona 500. Busch has never won the 500. He has never won a points title, either. And this clock is always ticking. But it's time for Busch to deal with winning's fellow traveler: losing.

"You've got to learn every day isn't your day," he said.

It will take time. You don't learn maturity overnight. You don't learn that the race doesn't always go to the guy who hangs it all out over the edge, who takes no prisoners, or the first one to be first.

Jimmie Johnson, 10 years older than Busch and the king himself, is an object lesson. This will be Busch's fifth full season in Sprint Cup. It took Johnson five full seasons to win his first points title. Before this ungodly three-peat, Johnson endured two fifths and two seconds in the final points standings. In a heartbreaking 2004, Johnson won eight races (just like Busch did in 2008), but lost the title by eight points to Kyle's older brother, Kurt.

This season is all about what Kyle Busch does with 2008. This season is about maturity, about learning to lose, and somehow coming out a winner. Busch didn't start his career that way.

"I didn't learn humble at the beginning," he said.

Yeah, he'll get booed again this season. Yeah, he'll bow his share this season.

But Busch thinks there was a lesson in 2008.

He was asked about the approaching season ...

"I sort of already started this year," Busch said. "I ran my Late Model two weeks ago and won in Lanier, Ga., so that was cool. I already got into winning ways. I'm the only guy here that has already won, and I feel good about that."

This is going to take some time.

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