| | | | | | | 18 - Kyle Busch | Las Vegas, NV |
| | Primary Sponsor: M&M's
Manufacturer: Toyota
Car Owner: Joe Gibbs
Team: Joe Gibbs Racing The youngest race winner in NASCAR’s premiere division – the NEXTEL Cup Series – Kyle Busch won his first event when he was 20 years old. During the past season, Bush claimed two wins, one pole, nine top-fives and 13 top-10 finishes. He was the only Raybestos Rookie to post a top-five finish in 2005 and he was Raybestos Rookie of the Race 23 times in 36 races. In fact, he’s the youngest Raybestos Rookie of the Year in the history of the NEXTEL Cup program, and the only first-year driver to win a pole in 2005.
Though his driving career formally began when he was 12 years old, Kyle began cruising around his family’s cul-de-sac in Las Vegas in a makeshift go-kart when he was 6 years old. As a child, he spent hours with his father and older brother learning to build and repair race cars, and by the time he was 10 years old, he was a full-fledged mechanic and worked as crew chief on his older brother’s dwarf car team. His own driving career began soon after his 13th birthday, in 1998.
For the next several years, he racked up more than 65 wins in Legends cars and two track championships at the “Bullring” at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway before moving up to late models. He then claimed 10 victories in late model competition at the Bullring in 2001. In August, 2001, Busch made his NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series debut at Indianapolis Raceway Park at age 16. He started 23 and finished ninth. But soon a ruling by NASCAR enforcing age limitations for competitors would sideline Kyle until he turned 18.
So Kyle turned to the American Speed Association (ASA) circuit and ran the whole 2002 schedule. He posted five top-fives and 10 top-10s, and in 20 starts he ended the season eighth in points. He also graduated from high school with honors that same year.
Kyle found success on the track almost immediately after signing with Hendrick Motorsports in 2003. He won the Automobile Racing Club of America (ARCA) event at Nashville Superspeedway from the pole, and then went on to another win at Kentucky Speedway. He entered seven NASCAR Busch Series races the same year, claiming a runner-up finish at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in his first start. He ended the year with two second-place finishes, three top-10 finishes and five top-10 qualifying efforts.
In 2004 he ran his first full-time season in the Busch Series, ending the year with five poles, five wins, 16 top-fives, 22 top-10s and a runner-up finish in the point standings. He also qualified for six NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series races, and late in the year, team owner Rick Hendrick chose Kyle to replace two-time Cup Series champion Terry Labonte in the No. 5 Kellogg’s Chevrolet for 2005 and beyond.
He began the 2005 season, at age 19, with a record-setting pole at California Speedway in his eighth career NEXTEL Cup Series start. In November, he finished out his rookie season with a victory at Phoenix International Raceway, ending the season with one pole, nine top-fives, 13 top-10s, two wins and a 20th place finish in the standings. | | | | | | |
