Kyle Busch is highly praised today for his accomplishments in the O’Reilly Auto Parts and Truck Series. The two-time Cup Series champion is the only driver in history to win championships in all three NASCAR national series and is the all-time leader in race victories in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series and Truck Series. NASCAR had to step in and introduce a rule limiting the number of races Cup Series drivers could compete in those series, largely due to Busch’s exceptionally high participation and success.
Very few drivers are considered to have been as committed as him when it comes to preparing for a weekend with racing on multiple levels. However, one name that deserves the same stature is Dale Jarrett. The 1999 Cup Series champion began his NASCAR career in 1982, driving for Thackston Racing in the Busch Series, before moving to the Cup Series in 1984.
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But even when Jarrett took the plunge, he didn’t stop participating at the lower level. He participated in several double weekends. What sets them all apart is that the races were rarely held on the same track. Talk to Kyle Petty in a recent interview, he said, “If you remember, Carl Edwards, Kyle Busch and those guys were doing doubles all the time.”
“Well, Brett Boddine and I were really the first to do that. We traveled a lot together in 1987. It was a tough road trying to build the cars and everything. So to walk away from that and let someone else take charge was tough. I’ll never forget Brett Bodine, and that’s what I was doing.”
With Petty explaining how difficult it was for drivers to move from track to track over the course of a weekend, Jarrett fondly recalled how he and Bodine incurred public ire by trying to rush to a race in Michigan. Jarrett competed in 329 O’Reilly Auto Parts Series races over 20 years. He has 11 victories in this streak. Busch, on the other hand, has competed in 367 races so far and scored 102 victories. This looks like a huge gap on paper. But, as Jarrett’s story proves, running doubleheader weekends was simply too difficult a task at the time. The number of races he competed in alone deserves great credit in light of this. He retired from the Cup Series in 2008 with 32 victories to his name.
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