NASCAR’s 4th place driver Kyle Busch effectively voted world’s best

NASCAR Cup Series driver Kyle Busch finished in fourth place in last year’s championship standings, but he still won the Best Driver ESPY Award.

NASCAR Cup Series driver Kyle Busch was voted the winner of the 2019 Best Driver ESPY Award at the ESPY Awards award ceremony Wednesday evening at Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles, California.

The 34-year-old Las Vegas, Nevada native beat out three drivers from three different series to win this award, including Formula 1‘s Lewis Hamilton, IndyCar‘s Scott Dixon and NHRA‘s Steve Torrence. Busch has now won the award twice, as he won it in 2016 after winning the 2015 Cup Series championship.

However, Busch won this year’s award despite the fact that he was the only non-reigning champion on the ballot. Whereas Hamilton became a five-time Formula 1 champion and Dixon became a five-time IndyCar champion last season and Torrence won the 2018 Top Fuel Dragster championship, Busch finished in fourth place in last year’s Cup Series championship standings.

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Not to take anything away from the phenomenal season that Busch had, which included him either setting or tying his career-high marks in wins (eight), top five finishes (22), top 10 finishes (28) and average finishing position (8.3) and perhaps most notably accruing the most total points throughout the season’s 36 races, but he could not come through when it mattered most.

Yet here he is, last year’s fourth place Cup Series driver, effectively having been crowned the “world’s best driver” ahead of several reigning champions.

This is the equivalent of the Atlanta Falcons being voted the world’s best team, not just the NFL’s best team, because of their first-half performance over the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LI in February of 2017.

*insert 28-3 joke*

Busch literally finished in last place in a four-car championship, as he finished in fourth place in the Championship 4 season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway behind the other three championship-eligible drivers, yet he was still nominated for this award and won it. Joey Logano won the championship ahead of Martin Truex Jr. in second place and Kevin Harvick in third.

However, truth be told, it makes sense — in a way.

While the Best Driver ESPY Award is technically somewhat of an international award, at least compared to some of the other awards that are given at the ceremony, given the fact that Formula 1 drivers are regularly on the ballot, including this year with five-time and two-time reigning champion Hamilton, it is primarily American voters who vote, and NASCAR, despite its recent decline and IndyCar’s recent surge, is still by far America’s premier racing series.

Only four IndyCar drivers have ever won this award, combining to do so a total of five times with Ryan Hunter-Reay being the lone two-time winner, in its 27 years of being an award, and one of these drivers, Nigel Mansell, won it in 1994 when there were no other nominees.

But this just makes this selection all the more ridiculous.

At least one NASCAR driver has been a nominee for the Best Driver ESPY Award in each of the last 25 years going back to 1995, which was the third year for the award and for the ESPY Awards in general.

Prior to this year, a non-Cup Series champion had not been a nominee for this award since Martin Truex Jr. was one in 2017 despite the fact that he did not win the 2016 championship. That said, Jimmie Johnson, who won the 2016 championship, was also a nominee along with Truex Jr.

2019 was only the second year during which a non-Cup Series champion was nominated for this award and the reigning champion was not. Dale Earnhardt Jr. was NASCAR’s nominee after winning his second Daytona 500 in 2014 while Johnson, who won the 2013 championship, was not a nominee. But at least Earnhardt Jr. won the Daytona 500; Busch didn’t even do that this year.

Yes, it is technically the 2019 Best Driver ESPY Award, but many nominees for literally every single ESPY Award have to do with 2018 success above all else. After all, it’s July, not December, and the nominees for these awards were determined several weeks ago.

But even still, Busch trails Logano in this year’s Cup Series championship standings, so even if Logano’s championship-winning season last year didn’t make him the “best NASCAR driver” since he didn’t put up the win total that Busch did, he’s certainly at that level right now, the level that apparently made Busch the “world’s best driver” from a year ago even with his fourth place finish in the standings.