Backstretch Motorsports

First it was Danica Patrick and Japan, Now there’s Ashley Force , and there’s Antron Brown following JR Todd from last season.

Diversity is alive and well in racing. At least in the IRL and NHRA.

Scott Speed not only took the Red Bull team to an ARCA win at the Kansas Lottery 150, he scored another top ten finish in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series event there.

Speed is acclerating the learning curve with style. Watch for seat vacancy to both appear and be filled with Speed before Cup seasons’ end over at Red Bull NASCAR. I don’t think there will be a third car.

Right now in Grand-Am GT competition, it’s all about Robin Liddell, Andrew Davis and the Stevenson Motorsports Pontiac GXP.R team.

Some canny race strategy and skillful driving go into the second straight win in eight days , first Mexico and now VIR.

“Having scored my first class win for almost two years eight days ago in Mexico, this victory is very sweet indeed and proves it was no one-off fluke,” commented an elated Liddell who finished over six seconds ahead of his nearest class rival.

Right now if it’s about NASCAR , its about Kyle Busch.

One of the most familar sites this season has been what many would say is a seasoned driver winning time and time again.

Now how many would have put the ’seasoned dirver’ moniker together with Kyle Busch a year or two ago. Just as many as would have put Kyle Busch in the same team structure with Tony Stewart and Denny Hamlin and it being a success.

So far there haven’t been mushroom clouds sighted over Huntersville, NC, where the JGR race shops are located. There haven’t been skirmishes of interest, even though there has the occasional snipe at the heels between teammates.

Kyle Busch’s style of driving is just about as mercurial as his personailty, sometimes you may say he’s a mature, patient racer with the big picture in sight.

Other times you stand scratching your head in utter amazement after an on-track move, wondering how the potential for disaster was avoided.

The question is, its just making the move to JGR that has made the difference in Kyle Busch?

“I hoped that it was going to.” says Busch, “I knew that I was getting with a great organization who had been in contention to win championships in all of their years pretty much in racing and with Tony being as good as he is, and with contending for the championships for the past however many years.”

The bottom line is: in the 2008 season, he has seven wins in the top three touring divisions of NASCAR and on every type of track you can throw at him. Including Talladega where up until Sunday, it was a track where he had rarely been around at the end of a race to finish, if he has been there at the end, it wasn’t on the lead lap.

And he’s been consistent. There’s the big difference in this to earlier seasons. There is a concentrated effort to not have the DNF.

Here’s the dirty little secret everyone seems to forget. This kid has been winning the whole time. This kid has been top 5-ing and top 10-ing the whole time.

281 total NASCAR races he’s run in the top three series, he’s been either winning, in the top 5 or the top 10 143 times. Do the math, that’s just under 50 percent.

That’s not quite Stewart or Gordon or even Jimmie Johnson percentages, but he doesn’t have those drivers’ years in grade either.

But if he continues to track this season at current pace, he’ll meet that 60 plus percentage plateau..

That’s what it’s all about

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