Kyle Busch's 2010 Bristol Sweep: A NASCAR Triumph

On August twenty first, twenty ten, NASCAR's Kyle Busch becomes the first driver to ever sweep a week at all three levels of NASCAR competition, winning the Cup Series, the Infinity Series, and the Craftsman Truck Series all in the same week at the Bristol Motor Speedway, which has become known as the Bristol Sweep. Here's the history behind, Here's how it all happened. Today on Daily Sports History. Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese, your guide to a rapid deep dive into sports history every day. Today's trivia question is why wasn't Kyle Busch able to race in the NASCAR Cup Series until he was eighteen? Now, Kyle Busch is one of the greatest NASCAR drivers of all time, with over sixty three wins at the Cup Series and three hundred and seventy eight tops in finishes. And at the Infinity Series he has one hundred and two wins with two hundred and sixty seven top ten finishes, and in the Craftsmen Truck Series he has sixty six wins and one hundred and forty one top ten finishes. And he started out as many drivers do racing go karts as a child, and quickly he rose through the rinks and actually at the age of sixteen, he began to race in the NASCAR Craftsmen Series. Now, if you don't know, there are three levels of NASCAR. There is the NASCAR Cup Series, which is what you're probably accustomed with. It's got Daytona, Tahdega, the Brickyard, the big major races you see normally on Sunday afternoon. But they also have the Infinity Series, which is kind of a second tier level to the Cup Series, kind of a minor league system for drivers to work their way up to the Cup Series. And it's gone by many names. It's gone by the Budweiser Model Sportsman Series, the Grand National Series, the Busch Series, the Nationwide Series, and since twenty fifteen it's been the Exfinity Series. And then there's the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. We started in nineteen ninety five and has been known as the Super Truck Series, the Craftsmen Series, the Camping World Truck Series, the Gander Outdoors Truck Series, and now again is known as the Craftsman Truck Series. Now this one's a little bit different as both NASCAR Cup and Xfinity Series are stock cars, and this is a stock truck, which means it has that truck look, although you wouldn't want to use these trucks to move anything because they don't have a whole lot of space in their bed. But it is a different kind of racing and is what really drew Kyle Busch. Kyle is a guy that just loves to race. At age sixteen, he finally he started to compete in the NASCAR Craftsman Series for raush Racing, and he was actually limited from being in the NASCAR Series as at the time they were sponsored by Mall Borrow cigarettes and you had to be at least eighteen. But at the age of nineteen, he finally made his NASCAR debut. And he was a guy that just loved to race. He worked his way up, but he loved the truck series. He worked his way into the Infinity Series, and once he got to NASCAR, he stayed there. But he just continued to want to race. And the way these races work usually is wherever the NASCAR Cup Series is going, before that race, they'll have the truck race and the Infinity race before at the same track. So many guys actually do like to race every now and then another one of those races, but Kyle was different. He wanted to race those a lot and a lot more than other drivers, and this is the reason why he holds the record for the most wins across the three top series. And in two thousand and three he became one of only six drivers to have won both a Cup Series and Inxfinity Series. And then in twenty ten is when he officially completed the very first sweep winning at all three races in the same week. Well at Bristol Motor Speedway. Now, if you don't know Bristol, it is a smaller track as it is only half a mile oval track, so it's very fast and very quick, and it's actually small enough that they've actually held college football games in the middle of the track and NASCAR has been running there ever since nineteen sixty one and has been a staple in NASCAR ever since. So why did Kyle Busch compete in all three series? Well, the simple reason is he loved to race. It really allowed him to stay visually keep racing. It's kind of like practice makes perfect. The more you race, the better you're gonna get and he really enjoyed the series, especially the Truck series, as he later said he could take or leave the the Exfinity Series, but the Truck Series was a lot of fun for him as it was a different kind of racing as trucks are different than cars. But it is also a goal for him to try to win at all three races during a week as it's very difficult because you have to win three different races in three different cars as each series has different specifications for the cars. So it all started at the O'Reilly two hundred on August eight at the Bristol Motor Speedway and this was the first win of the weekend at Bristol and this was at the time part of the Camping World Truck Series, which now is known as the Craftsman Truck Series. Then on Friday, August twentieth, he would win the Food City fifty for at the time the NASCAR Nationwide Series, which is now known as the Infinity Series. So he had gone two for two heading into the big one, the NASCAR Cup Series, and this one wasn't as easy as he had an ongoing feud with another race car driver at the time, Brad Keselowski, as during this race, he actually intentionally wrecked Kazlowski late in the race and actually openly mocked him by making a crying baby face, and Brad would go on to call Kyle Busch a jerk. Later that same day, on lap one sixty one, Kyle Busch would emerge into first place, passing Jimmy Johnson, and he continued to grow his lead lap after lap, and after he crossed the finish line, he would celebrate with that broom, saying he had swept the entire event, saying this was something he had been fighting to do, had entered ever since he had been in NASCAR. He wanted to prove that he was the best at all three levels, and Bristol seemed to be his lucky charm, as in twenty seventeen he did the same thing, winning all three races in one weekend, and despite being thirty nine and having all the six sess he's had, as he's a two time NASCAR Cup champion, and he won the Exfinity Series in two thousand and nine, and he's a seven time Trucks Series winner and in two times SB Best Driver of the Year winner. He continues to race to this day, although it's a little less as NASCAR later added a rule limiting Cup Series drivers from participating in as many Infinity and Truck Series as they want to use that more as a minor league system to grow drivers. They don't want the name brand drivers they have like Kyle Busch to continue to go down and dominate that series, as he's the most winning driver in the Infinity and Truck Series, and so they want to have other drivers have that opportunity, and they're just limiting the amounts they can do those races, so he doesn't have the chance to win the Cup Series at each of those smaller stages. That doesn't mean he could still do this sweep, as he can plan out which races he does throughout the year, but it does make it more of a challenge, and they call it the Kyle Busch rule. But it doesn't seem like he's slowing down anytime soon, as he just seems like a guy that loves to race all the time. And I want to thank you for listening to Today's Daily Sports History. If you like this, please subscribe wherever you're listening so that way you don't miss a single episode and come back tomorrow for more Daily Sports History. The answer to today's trivia question of why wasn't Kyle Busch able to race at the NASCAR Cup Series until he was eighteen was because at the time they were sponsored by Marlborough, who was a cigarette company, and you couldn't race for a cigarette company until you were eighteen, just like you couldn't smoke till you were eighteen as well.