Kyle Busch 2015 Review
By Richard Tix
Season Grade: A+
Season Preview: "Even in a bad 2014 season Kyle Busch made a run in the Chase. Will he truly become a title contender in 2015? After a great finish to the 2013 season I thought last year would be the year. Maybe all he needed was a down year to refocus? I think JGR will take a step back in the right direction as will Kyle. I think he could end up with 4-5 wins, 12-14 top 5's, and 20-22 top 10's. As always, it is expected he makes the Chase and I think at this point in his career he needs to be in contention for a title."
Season Review: Kyle getting hurt threw off some of my yearly prediction numbers for him, but these reviews are not about what I predicted, but rather how the driver did. Rowdy still managed to get to my predicted 5 wins and 12 top 5's, but he only managed 16 top 10's in 25 races (which is 64% of the time). So, if you take that in a full season he would have been around 23 if he was on the same pace.
Needless to say, even after missing time 2015 was an amazing year for Rowdy. He won 20% of the time, finished top 5 48% of the time, and top 10 64% of the time in races he ran (25). Many are discrediting his Championship already because it wasn't during 36 races, yet he put up amazing numbers in even less time. If anything, fans should at least recognize he did everything he possibly could to deserve it once NASCAR noted he would be eligible for the Chase if he was top 30 and had at least one win by race 27 of 2015.
In 25 races he has a better season then Carl Edwards who if he made the final four no one would have complained...He also had arguably the same success as teammate Matt Kenseth, who no one would have complained about if he made the finale and won (Kyle had the same amount of wins and top 5's with only 4 fewer top 10's then Kenseth).
Sure, it will not always be the strongest season long driver to win (neither are most sports), but that is what makes sports fun and exciting. Sure, it isn't fair, but people would get sick of knowing the Champ with four races left if we went back to just points racing (obviously some season's we would have close finishes).
So, after 11 years of the Chase can we start to move on? We are not going back and we need to celebrate a guy like Kyle Busch who fought through a ton of adversity to win his first Cup Championship. Congrats Rowdy, you did in fact earn it!
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