Busch has troubles in Pocono

This past weekend there were two Triple Crown events that took place.
Neither one was successful. Big Brown was a flop at the Belmont Stakes in his bid for the Triple Crown and Kyle Busch was not too successful in Pocono. The fans did not boo Big Brown but cheered when Busch had his troubles.
Most of Kyle’s troubles started when he took out Dale Earnhardt Jr. earlier in the year. While most true race fans realized that the incident was just good racing, the Earnhardt Nation did not see it that way. If you don’t think that Earnhardt Jr. is the most popular driver in NASCAR, all you had to see was the mass exodus from the grandstands when the 88 car was taken to the garage during the Best Buy 400 at Dover a couple of weeks ago.
Last season Hendrick Motorsports let Busch go and picked up Earnhardt.
Joe Gibbs snatched up Busch but all the talk was about Earnhardt. The 2008 Sprint Cup season to date has turned into a three and a half month long coming out party for Busch. With 4 Cup victories this year, 4 Nationwide victories and 2 Truck series wins, Busch has been the dominant driver in NASCAR. Most of the media write about his heroic exploits, then he bad mouths the handling of the COT while leading races. Some like his arrogant attitude, some don’t, but they all write about him.
This past week, Busch tried something that no other driver has ever tried. He raced in all three NASCAR series on the same weekend. Other drivers have done that but what was different here was the fact that each of the series races was at a different track in different states. On Friday he ran the Truck race at Texas Motor Speedway, Saturday the Nationwide race at Nashville Superspeedway, and Sunday the Sprint Cup race at Pocono Raceway. Scheduling did not allow him to qualify for the Truck or Nationwide race meaning he would have to start at the back of the field in those two events, but he thought that he could overcome those penalties.
Evidently, those long trips took their toll on young Kyle. It started well with a 2nd place finish in the Truck race but went downhill from there. A cut tire late in the Nationwide race caused him to lose three laps and finish in 20th place. You would think things couldn’t get any worse, but they did. For the Sprint Cup race at Pocono, a practice crash sent Busch to the rear of the field for the start of the race. Early in the race, Busch was passing McMurray and asked his spotter if he was clear but did not wait for a reply. Turning into the No. 26, they crashed and Busch never recovered, finishing dead last. He has always been an aggressive driver but he may be pushing the envelope too far. He should be concentrating on the big prize, The Sprint Cup Championship. He still leads the Sprint Cup points lead, but his 142 point advantage has been cut to just 21 over Jeff Burton.
On my ARCA update for Justin Allgaier, he clearly had the dominant car in Pocono, leading by as much as 8 seconds. A transmission failure caused him to lose all gears except 3rd gear but because of the exceptional handling of the car, he still managed a 5th place finish, moving him up to 4th in the ARCA points race.