DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. _ "You're looking at him."
That was the answer Kyle Busch gave me without smiling or blinking on Wednesday when I asked who is the best stock car driver in the world.
And as amazing as it sounds based on Busch's cocksure reputation, it didn't seem arrogant at all.
It actually seemed honest and accurate and truthful.
The fact is Kyle Busch is the defending NASCAR Cup champion and currently the most accomplished driver in the world at maneuvering these 3,000-pound motorized machines of mayhem into victory lane. The great Cale Yarborough once said, "Driving a stock car is like dancing with a chain saw." If that's the case, then Kyle Busch is Mikhail Baryshnikov in a racing helmet, Michael Jackson in a fire suit and the incomparable Fred Astaire doing his 200 mph cha-cha-cha in perfect step with his No. 18 Ginger Rogers Toyota Camry.
In fact, I'll even take this a step further. With apologies to Richard Petty, who they call "The King," and Dale Earnhardt Sr., who was known as "The Intimidator," and Jimmie Johnson, who has been referred to as "Superman," Kyle Busch might just go down as simply "The Greatest."
Shoot, he might already be the greatest to ever live. Petty has a record 200 Cup victories, but Busch holds the record for most career wins combined (208) in all three of NASCAR's major series (Cup, Xfinity and Truck). When I asked him Wednesday at Daytona 500 Media Day how his 208 total victories compare to the King's 200 Cup victories, Busch waved the caution flag.
"That's not for me to decide," he said.
Fair enough, but the point is this: Kyle Busch can drive anything, anytime, anywhere. If you were to put him in the Iditarod, he'd figure out a way for his sled dogs to outmaneuver and go faster than yours.
"He has a feel for the car; a sixth sense," said older brother Kurt Busch, himself a former Cup champion. "I've been good over the years; he's been great. I don't know where the ceiling is for my little brother. He's already a legend in our sport at the age of 34."
I know, I know. Petty, Earnhardt and Johnson each has seven Cup championships and Kyle only has two, but Kyle, even though he has been driving Cup cars since he was a teenage prodigy, is still relatively young _ and getting better every year. When I asked him on Wednesday how important it is to go down as perhaps the greatest of all time, he didn't shy away from the question.
"It's not life and death, but it would certainly be nice," says Busch, whose 56 Cup wins and two championships are behind only Johnson (83 wins and seven championships) among active drivers "You better set your goals high and go out there and try to achieve them. ... If you set your goals at one championship or two championships, well hell, I'm already done, so why am I here _ you know what I mean?"
His bid for a third championship begins Sunday at the Daytona 500, a race he fiercely wants to win to fill in the one glaring gap on his amazing resume. He is 0 for 14 at the 500, including last year's bitterly and tortuously close runner-up finish to Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin.
Busch says not yet winning the Daytona 500 isn't something that's "going to kill me" but admits it does "weigh on me." Obviously, he doesn't want to go down with Tony Stewart, Mark Martin and Rusty Wallace as all-time great drivers who never won NASCAR's most coveted race.
And he won't. The fact is, Kyle Busch is simply too good and too talented not to win at Daytona. Don't delude yourself: Eventually, the greatest American driver will win the Great American Race. Let's not forget Earnhardt Sr. was 0 for 20 before he ended his Daytona 500 drought.
And if ever there was a driver who compares to Earnhardt in both skillfulness, fearlessness and brashness, it is Busch. In fact, Dale Earnhardt Jr. has said he sees a lot of his legendary father in Busch's relentless attacking style.
"That's the way dad raced and Kyle has that same style _ very aggressive," Junior once said.
And very demanding. And very unforgiving. And very impetuous and arrogant. If Earnhardt was the Intimidator, Busch is the Instigator. He readily admits he has given other drivers the middle finger while blowing by them on the track. He does not apologize for his bold, brash, bad-boy image. He not only disregards the many boos he receives; he delights in them.
Darrell Waltrip once said that Kyle Busch is the only driver on the circuit who "can go three-wide all by himself." Busch has been called a "whiner" and a "crybaby" and a "jackass." After he spun her out during a race in 2017, Danica Patrick went on an expletive-filled tirade about him and ended it with, "Now I know why people hate him!"
Go ahead and hate him; he doesn't care.
In fact, he considers a compliment.
As the late, great Kobe Bryant once said, "Haters are a good problem to have. Nobody hates the good ones. They hate the great ones."
Or, in Kyle Busch's case, maybe the greatest one who ever lived.
