He won the Nationwide Series race at Mexico City, the Sprint Cup race at Sonoma and the Sprint Cup race at Watkins Glen. Kyle Busch, obviously, is a pretty good road racer.
So what's next, Formula One?
Well, maybe.
Busch still plans to test a Toyota F1 car in Japan after the season. It's a publicity gimmick, but with Busch emerging as one of the top drivers in NASCAR and maybe even a special talent on road courses, who's to say he wouldn't get a second look for the world circuit if he fares well in his test?
He's still young enough at age 23. And he's certainly brave enough.
"From what I'm told by Scott Speed and Juan Pablo Montoya, the engineers sort of set it up and they drive it for you,"
Busch said. "They tell you where to brake, how fast to go through that corner and stuff. If they tell me to go wide open through one corner, I'd better hope it sticks because I'm going to do it."
Here's a note of interest about Busch's road course prowess. Busch has won two of his first eight Sprint Cup road courses races.
The great Dale Earnhardt won only one of his 47 career starts on a road course.
Kyle Petty Looks Beyond
Kyle Petty says he isn't retiring - ever - and that when he's no longer the regular driver of the No. 45 Dodge, the car probably will carry a number other than the one used by his late son, Adam Petty.
"The way I look at it, I'm like Bill Elliott,"
Petty, 48, told the NASCAR Wire Service. "Elliott never retired."
Petty said that if he'd had a career like his father, Richard, he might opt for a true retirement like Richard had at the end of the 1992 season.
But since he hasn't done so, he'll continue to race when it interests him.
This season, he has started only nine, taking several races off for his work as a TNT race analyst and for other reasons.
If another driver takes over the No. 45 car full time, Kyle will ask Petty Enterprises to give it a new number. Adam Petty ran that number until he was killed in a crash at New Hampshire in May 2000, just two months shy of his 20th birthday.
"The 45 was Adam's number, and I would rather see it be Adam's number in my mind always,"
Petty said.
IRL Drama
Scott Dixon passed a fuel-starved Helio Castroneves in the final 100 yards to win Saturday night's Indy Racing League event at Kentucky, but a more compelling battle was taking place for 11th place.
That's where Sarah Fisher, driving for her low-budget family-owned team, entered the first turn of the last lap side-by-side with Danica Patrick.
Fisher's right rear suspension broke, relegating her to a 15th-place finish, while Patrick finished 11th. But it was the first sign in years that Fisher, the original female star in the IRL, could be on her way back.
"A little bit more time in the car and a bit more testing and she is going to challenge,"
chief engineer Tom Brown said of Fisher.
With only three races remaining, Dixon has put a stranglehold on a second IRL championship.
He Said It
"When it's all said and done, I'll be able to go back home to Tasmania and tell them how good I was at Watkins Glen on one year."
- Australia native Marcos Ambrose, who came from the 43rd starting spot to finish third in Sunday's Centurion Boats at the Glen, giving Wood Brothers Racing its first top-five finish in three years.
