The Kyle Busch Wins Record That Not Even Richard Petty Can Touch

• Richard Petty has his 200 triumphs all in the Grand National/Cup Series.

• Meanwhile, Kyle Busch has an incredible record of 224 combined career wins across all three of NASCAR’s top series.

• The reason why Busch’s overall wins record will never be broken is he was able to take advantage of NASCAR’s very loose rules that allowed Cup Series drivers to compete in essentially as many Xfinity and Craftsman Truck Series Races as they wanted.

So much is made—and rightly so—about Richard Petty’s record of 200 career wins in the NASCAR Grand National and Cup series. He’s not called “The King” for nothing.

But in a sense, Petty’s achievement somewhat pales by comparison to what NASCAR’s crown prince (some might derisively call him clown prince instead), Kyle Busch, has done during his stock car racing career.

Heading into the 2023 season-opening Daytona 500, the younger Busch brother is in the same rarified air as Petty, as both possess NASCAR records that will never, EVER be broken.

While Petty has his 200 triumphs all in the Grand National/Cup Series, Busch has an incredible record of 224 combined career wins across all three of NASCAR’s top series.

And he’s still winning, with each triumph adding to that already huge number of victories.

Let’s break that massive wins number down:

• In his main day job, so to speak, in the Cup Series, Busch has 60 wins. That number has him tied with Kevin Harvick for ninth on the all-time NASCAR Cup wins list. Busch also has two Cup championships (2015 and 2019).

• In the Xfinity Series, Busch is unquestionably the all-time winningest driver with 102 wins (and one championship in 2009).

• And lastly, in the Craftsman Truck Series, Busch has another record: 62 career wins.

If any future driver were to attempt to break either Petty’s Cup record or Busch’s overall NASCAR wins record, and with limitations on how many starts full-time Cup drivers can make in the Xfinity and Truck Series, that same driver would have to average at least 15 combined wins in a 15-season career or perhaps 12 combined wins per season in a 20-season career—an absolutely impossible mark to consistently achieve, let alone even try to attempt.

Even in his best overall season (2010), Busch managed 24 combined wins—and 21 combined wins in 2008.

Ironically, Busch had one win each in Cup and Trucks in 2022, but failed to make a start in the Xfinity Series for the first time since 2003.

The reason why Busch’s overall wins record will never be broken is he was able to take advantage of NASCAR’s very loose rules at the time that essentially allowed any and all drivers—including Cup Series full-timers—to compete as often as they wanted to in the two support series of the Xfinity and Trucks divisions.

That’s why for several seasons, you saw more than a few drivers run full-time Cup and Xfinity schedules at the same time. Busch is the prime example of that, oftentimes having made 80 or more combined starts in the same season.

For example, in 2009, he made 86 combined starts: running full seasons in Cup (36 starts) and Xfinity (35 starts, including winning his first and only Xfinity championship) and a part-time schedule in Trucks (15 starts). He also made 84 combined starts in 2008 and 81 in 2010.

But in recent years, NASCAR put its foot down and told full-time Cup drivers they would only be allowed to compete in an extremely limited number of Xfinity and Truck starts (first just seven starts and more recently that number was reduced to just five starts in other series per season).

Ergo, there went any chance of any driver in the future who possesses even greater talent than Busch to break, let alone even come close, to his overall wins record.

Consider this: Busch began racing in NASCAR In the Truck Series at the age of 16, making six starts (best finish was a pair of top-10s) before he was banned because NASCAR felt he was too young and forced him to sit out until he was 18.

Older brother Kurt said of Kyle back in 2001, “If you think I’m good, wait until you see my kid brother Kyle on the racetrack.”

Those were such prophetic words.

Hard as it may seem to believe, Busch—a driver who is both celebrated and also considered by some as polarizing because of his oftentimes volatile personality (although to be fair, he has calmed down quite a bit in recent years as he’s gotten older, got married and became a father), particularly when he loses—will turn 38 on May 2.

Having moved from his longtime stint at Joe Gibbs Racing to Richard Childress Racing this season, Busch’s overall wins mark will continue to be built upon until the day he ultimately retires … perhaps in another 10 years with a few more championships and maybe another 20 career Cup wins and 5 to 10 more Xfinity or Truck wins.

In fact, it would not be surprising to see Busch win his first Daytona 500—one of the few NASCAR crown jewels that has eluded him throughout his career—in his RCR debut on Sunday.

Here are some comments over the years from both Busch and Petty on the former’s achievement and their mutual admiration for each other:

First, here’s Petty on Busch:

“I’m not taking anything away from his driving ability. … But, the big deal is that the competition in the other two leagues, it’s not there (like it is in Cup).”

Still, Petty paid Busch an extremely high compliment when he added, “(Busch is) one of them guys that you would be able to put in competition with all the greats that have been here before. He would have been very competitive with us. Just like Pearson and them would have been very competitive with these guys today. Same thing.”

And now, here’s Busch on Petty:

“It’s not my job to compare or say which one was harder or easier (talking about his era vs. Petty’s era). There’s other people out there that can argue that fact who have seen Richard Petty run races that were 50-lappers back at the fairgrounds. It was a Cup race and there were 16 cars in the field. It’s not for me to argue. I don’t care.”

On reaching 200 wins before he kept on going and winning even more, Busch had this to say:

“It’s a pretty cool accomplishment. There’s so many different ways you can argue it or debate it. It has nothing to do with Richard. It’s just solely a number. Being able to go out there and celebrate 200 wins—I don’t know if it will happen again. But if it does then that person should cherish that moment.

“I hate that you get beat up so much about an accomplishment. But, I guess that’s part of life. Haters gonna hate. Certainly, as I get older here, it’s going to start slowing down (his ability to continue earning multiple wins per season in whichever class he’s racing in). And with the restrictions that I’m under, it already has. I would have been to 200 a hell of a long time ago if I would have run as many races as I wanted to.”

Follow Autoweek contributor Jerry Bonkowski on Twitter @JerryBonkowski