I am going to start this soapbox article by asking you a question. Should Winston Cup drivers be allowed to drive in The Busch Grand National Series? In my never to be humble opinion, I think that they should not be able to. There is, like it or not, a hierarchy in Motorsports. You have to be a champ of your local track, generally Late Model Stock, then you move up to a Pro Series like Featherlite, Slim Jim All Pro, Jackaroo Cup or something like that. Next, if you are still winning, you move up to Busch Grand National Series. Every year it seems that a handful of driver's feel that they are ready for the big boys, and they move to Winston Cup. The list is almost endless of driver's who have made the jump and did extremely well. Names like Jeff Gordon, Terry Labonte, Dale Earnhardt just to name a few. Then there is a list of guys who haven't done so well making the jump. Names like Kevin LaPage, Todd Bodine, Jeff Green come to mind. If you can make the jump, congratulations. If you can't well, the Busch Series isn't as big of a purse, but it's great racing. I personally don't feel like established stars in Winston Cup should be able to step down and race Busch Grand National series. Names like Mark Martin, Jeff Burton, Michael Waltrip, and Dale Jarrett are good examples. Mark Martin is the winningest BGN driver in history. Great for him, but how many of those races did he win after he became a Winston Cup star? The Winn-Dixie ford practically owns Rockingham, and you can almost put money on Mark if he drives in BGN that week, you know he's gonna be a top 5 at his worst. That keeps rising stars out of their shot. There are only a limited number of starting positions in a Busch race. With established Winston Cup drivers in them, it takes out "the local boy's day in the sun" if you will. That's why I was so happy to watch live at the track, Matt Kenseth win the race. He's a rising star from Hooter's Cup and several other divisions. He beat the most dominant car in The Rock's history in the Winn Dixie ford and he beat the most dominant car of the day, The Track Gear #9 driven by Jeff Burton. So really, I love watching Winston Cup, and I love watching Busch Grand National races. But, I think that when a Busch race is being run the attention should be on BGN drivers, and the Winston Cup boys need to leave it alone. Thanks for listening.
