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It's time that we put some respect on Adam Stevens' name.
No, this is not a slam on Kyle Busch's talent. The late, great race car driver's talent — both raw and harnessed — was incredible. He won 63 races in NASCAR's top series and 234 races between Cup, O'Reilly and Trucks.
Everybody who followed NASCAR closely knew Kyle Busch had. Many people felt he could've gone Formula 1 racing or done the difficult double (Indy 500 and Coke 600) and more than held his own in open wheel cars. I too, believe that.
But while Kyle Busch was a talented race car driver, he didn't really grasp or truly understand the meaning of patience enough.
That is, until Adam Stevens came along.
Throughout the 50 minutes that I spoke with him, Stevens, on several occasions, was very humble in saying, essentially, that he was born on third base with the drivers that he worked with, particularly at Joe Gibbs Racing.
But when you get to the top levels of the sport of NASCAR, you're going to have a talented driver with race-winning equipment, traditionally, if you're at not only Gibbs, but Hendrick or Penske as well. They've been the three predominant powerhouses in the sport for quite sometime, as each of the three teams I mentioned have won a NASCAR Cup Series Championship since 2015. No other team has won one.
Still, Stevens took a driver in Kyle Busch, one who had won eight races in a season back in 2008, one who finished second in his very first race in the second-tier series (now O'Reilly), and one who had won 29 races at the Cup level from 2005 to 2014, and got him over the hump — not only once, but twice.
It's a hump that Denny Hamlin, despite all of his success, has not been able to do. Carl Edwards was ultimately not able to do it either. Chase Elliott's only done it once so far in his career, but to be fair, he still has time yet. And there are more I can list off.
The point is, Kyle Busch absolutely was talented enough to win multiple NASCAR Cup Series Championships. However, without Stevens, he doesn't win the two NASCAR Cup Series Championships that he does, in my opinion.
Why do I think that?
Because from the conversations you can pick up on any weekly NASCAR Radioactive rewind that you can find on YouTube, Adam Stevens challenged Kyle Busch in a way that crew chiefs before and even since did not.
If Kyle got smart on the radio, which was a frequent occurrence — heck, he single-handedly made NASCAR Radioactive popular with his one-of-a-kind quotes and expletive-laced rants — Stevens would give it back to him. He saw himself as not better or worse than Busch, but as his equal, which he absolutely was.
The result was Kyle's best five-season stretch of his racing career, with 28 wins, over 7,000 laps led, 16 poles and an average finish in any season from 2015 to 2019 that was no worse than 11.5 in any one of those seasons.
The dynamic duo made the Championship 4 in each of those five seasons, and won the title twice. Yes, they were absolutely the best driver and crew chief duo in the garage area.
Kyle Busch never had an average finish better than 12.5 in any season before Adam Stevens came into the picture. With Stevens atop the pit box, his average finish from 2015 to 2019 was never worse than 11.5.
That means for five consecutive seasons, Stevens had Busch performing above even his own lofty standards, all while developing him into a consistent championship threat every year.
I was never a Kyle Busch fan but I was an Adam Stevens fan, so I found myself keeping a close eye on the No. 18 every week.
That changed in 2020, when Busch, in an interview with Graham Bensinger, decided he was going to run Stevens down. One season where you finish outside the top-four in points, and you complain?
It was quintessential Kyle Busch. He always wanted excellence. Like drinking copious amounts of caffeinated soda, or pop, as we call it here, you just want more. That's what made Busch one of the best to ever drive a race car.
But quite frankly, I felt that they were a great tandem together. So I, to say the least, was pretty aggravated, to put it lightly, with Busch, thinking he would even believe a crew chief change was necessary.
Adam Stevens got you your two championships. And you're bailing on him because you finished eighth in points and only won one race in one season?
My thought was simple — have the patience for the guy that brought you to the dance in the first place.
Truthfully, I think Kyle was mad about other things that Stevens really couldn't control. Maybe he was mad at the performance too. Who really knows.
Kyle Busch will be a missed figure in NASCAR racing. Many people respect and liked the person that he grew into. He is missed every week when the green flag is dropped. He was a guy that came onto the scene during NASCAR's peak and was instantly competitive. In that sense, he, along with Denny Hamlin and Brad Keselowski, were really the last of that era left. Now, it's just Denny and Brad. Denny's retiring in 2027. I would say that Brad Keselowski will retire by the end of the decade.
It's fantastic to see the stories that have come out about him in the weeks since his passing.
But while acknowledging his loss and the tremendous legacy that he leaves behind, it's also perfectly okay to acknowledge that the man who helped Busch establish his best years ever in NASCAR's top division, and officially grow from a great race car into a special one that will be remember as no worse than a top-15 driver of all time, if not better, is from right here in Portsmouth, Ohio. After all, it does take a team.
The man who led the crew that serviced Kyle Busch's greatest five-year run in a no-doubt Hall of Famer career is one Adam Stevens, and it would not surprise me one bit, considering the work he's already done with Christopher Bell, if Stevens himself isn't in the NASCAR Hall of Fame someday.
I fully expect to see him in there someday.
Continue reading...
No, this is not a slam on Kyle Busch's talent. The late, great race car driver's talent — both raw and harnessed — was incredible. He won 63 races in NASCAR's top series and 234 races between Cup, O'Reilly and Trucks.
Everybody who followed NASCAR closely knew Kyle Busch had. Many people felt he could've gone Formula 1 racing or done the difficult double (Indy 500 and Coke 600) and more than held his own in open wheel cars. I too, believe that.
But while Kyle Busch was a talented race car driver, he didn't really grasp or truly understand the meaning of patience enough.
That is, until Adam Stevens came along.
Throughout the 50 minutes that I spoke with him, Stevens, on several occasions, was very humble in saying, essentially, that he was born on third base with the drivers that he worked with, particularly at Joe Gibbs Racing.
But when you get to the top levels of the sport of NASCAR, you're going to have a talented driver with race-winning equipment, traditionally, if you're at not only Gibbs, but Hendrick or Penske as well. They've been the three predominant powerhouses in the sport for quite sometime, as each of the three teams I mentioned have won a NASCAR Cup Series Championship since 2015. No other team has won one.
Still, Stevens took a driver in Kyle Busch, one who had won eight races in a season back in 2008, one who finished second in his very first race in the second-tier series (now O'Reilly), and one who had won 29 races at the Cup level from 2005 to 2014, and got him over the hump — not only once, but twice.
It's a hump that Denny Hamlin, despite all of his success, has not been able to do. Carl Edwards was ultimately not able to do it either. Chase Elliott's only done it once so far in his career, but to be fair, he still has time yet. And there are more I can list off.
The point is, Kyle Busch absolutely was talented enough to win multiple NASCAR Cup Series Championships. However, without Stevens, he doesn't win the two NASCAR Cup Series Championships that he does, in my opinion.
Why do I think that?
Because from the conversations you can pick up on any weekly NASCAR Radioactive rewind that you can find on YouTube, Adam Stevens challenged Kyle Busch in a way that crew chiefs before and even since did not.
If Kyle got smart on the radio, which was a frequent occurrence — heck, he single-handedly made NASCAR Radioactive popular with his one-of-a-kind quotes and expletive-laced rants — Stevens would give it back to him. He saw himself as not better or worse than Busch, but as his equal, which he absolutely was.
The result was Kyle's best five-season stretch of his racing career, with 28 wins, over 7,000 laps led, 16 poles and an average finish in any season from 2015 to 2019 that was no worse than 11.5 in any one of those seasons.
The dynamic duo made the Championship 4 in each of those five seasons, and won the title twice. Yes, they were absolutely the best driver and crew chief duo in the garage area.
Kyle Busch never had an average finish better than 12.5 in any season before Adam Stevens came into the picture. With Stevens atop the pit box, his average finish from 2015 to 2019 was never worse than 11.5.
That means for five consecutive seasons, Stevens had Busch performing above even his own lofty standards, all while developing him into a consistent championship threat every year.
I was never a Kyle Busch fan but I was an Adam Stevens fan, so I found myself keeping a close eye on the No. 18 every week.
That changed in 2020, when Busch, in an interview with Graham Bensinger, decided he was going to run Stevens down. One season where you finish outside the top-four in points, and you complain?
It was quintessential Kyle Busch. He always wanted excellence. Like drinking copious amounts of caffeinated soda, or pop, as we call it here, you just want more. That's what made Busch one of the best to ever drive a race car.
But quite frankly, I felt that they were a great tandem together. So I, to say the least, was pretty aggravated, to put it lightly, with Busch, thinking he would even believe a crew chief change was necessary.
Adam Stevens got you your two championships. And you're bailing on him because you finished eighth in points and only won one race in one season?
My thought was simple — have the patience for the guy that brought you to the dance in the first place.
Truthfully, I think Kyle was mad about other things that Stevens really couldn't control. Maybe he was mad at the performance too. Who really knows.
Kyle Busch will be a missed figure in NASCAR racing. Many people respect and liked the person that he grew into. He is missed every week when the green flag is dropped. He was a guy that came onto the scene during NASCAR's peak and was instantly competitive. In that sense, he, along with Denny Hamlin and Brad Keselowski, were really the last of that era left. Now, it's just Denny and Brad. Denny's retiring in 2027. I would say that Brad Keselowski will retire by the end of the decade.
It's fantastic to see the stories that have come out about him in the weeks since his passing.
But while acknowledging his loss and the tremendous legacy that he leaves behind, it's also perfectly okay to acknowledge that the man who helped Busch establish his best years ever in NASCAR's top division, and officially grow from a great race car into a special one that will be remember as no worse than a top-15 driver of all time, if not better, is from right here in Portsmouth, Ohio. After all, it does take a team.
The man who led the crew that serviced Kyle Busch's greatest five-year run in a no-doubt Hall of Famer career is one Adam Stevens, and it would not surprise me one bit, considering the work he's already done with Christopher Bell, if Stevens himself isn't in the NASCAR Hall of Fame someday.
I fully expect to see him in there someday.
Continue reading...
