Kyle Busch Playing the Percentages

In most professional sports, each event pits two teams against each other to find out who will come out on top. Some matchups turn out to be more or less even than others but, in theory, each team has a 50 percent chance of winning that day.

 

Now, there is one winner each time one of the three top NASCAR touring series take to the racetrack, but also 39 drivers in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, 37 in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, and 31 in the NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series who don’t get to victory lane each race.

 

Given the 1-in-39, 1-in-37 or 1-in-31 chance of a win each race, what Kyle Busch has done in NASCAR’s top three national series is impressive, to say the least. Busch brought home his 53rd career Cup Series win and his 200th overall NASCAR national series win last weekend at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California.

 

Coming off the 200th overall win last weekend, Busch, driver of the No. 18 M&M’S Chocolate Bar Toyota Camry for Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR), will cross another milestone off his list this weekend at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway. He’s set to run both the Truck Series race for his own Kyle Busch Motorsports (KBM) team Saturday, then Sunday’s Cup Series STP 500, the latter of which will give the M&M’S Chocolate Bar driver 1,000 career starts across NASCAR’s top three series. His winning percentages for his first 998 races tell quite the story.

 

Cup Series:

503 starts

53 wins

10.5 percent win rate

Xfinity Series:

348 starts

94 wins

27 percent win rate

Truck Series:

147 starts

53 wins

36.1 percent win rate

Overall:

998 starts

200 wins

20 percent win rate

 

Busch heads to Martinsville this weekend riding some impressive recent statistics at the paperclip-shaped half-mile oval. In his last seven starts there, Busch has two wins, seven top-five finishes and an impressive average finish of 2.8. Martinsville was a much bigger challenge for Busch earlier in his career, especially during his early years racing under the JGR banner. In fact, Busch finished outside the top-10 in three of his first four races there with JGR in 2008 and 2009.

 

The Las Vegas native has now won back-to-back Cup Series races at ISM Raceway near Phoenix and at Fontana the last two weeks and now looks to win three races in a row for the third time in his career. He first accomplished the feat in his Cup Series championship season in 2015, and also last season.

 

The M&M’S Chocolate Bar scheme on Busch’s No. 18 Toyota this weekend appears for the third time this season. The new permanent addition to the brand’s iconic candy lineup will be highlighted Sunday as Busch looks to continue his hot streak. The M&M’S Chocolate Bar consists of smooth milk chocolate with whole M&M’S® Minis visible in a large bar, and it’s available nationwide in five flavors: Peanut, Milk Chocolate, Crispy, Almond and Crispy Mint.

 

As Busch heads to Martinsville this weekend coming off his 200th overall win ready to make his 1,000th overall start, he’ll hope the percentages are once again in his favor as he sets his sights on more victories to add to his already impressive total.

FRM PR