On Sunday, June 2, Kyle Busch cruised to a fairly easy victory at the Pocono 400, racking up his fourth Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series win this season and the 55th Cup Series win of his career. As it turns out, that 55th win tied Busch with Hall of Fame driver Rusty Wallace for ninth on the Cup Series career victory list.
Following his dominating performance at Pocono Raceway, the driver of the No. 18 Toyota Camry for JGR kept his remarks pretty boilerplate, more focused on conquering Pocono than on his spot on the Cup Series wins list.
"I just can't say enough about everybody at Joe Gibbs Racing," Busch said, according to NASCAR.com. "Everybody that works there works so hard to build these awesome Camrys. We've had an amazing roll this year here so far. We've been doing well."
"We feel like we've kind of given away a couple of wins that we thought we had a shot for, but overall, it's been awesome to get back to Victory Lane here. Pocono's been a struggle, but it's a lot better now."
Even though Busch didn't delve into it, you know he has to be thinking about where he sits among the Cup Series greats. Back in March at the Cup Series race at Auto Club Speedway, Busch hit an impressive 200-win milestone across the three national series (he currently has 95 NASCAR Xfinity Series wins and 56 Truck Series wins). Now, as he sits tied for ninth in all-time Cup Series wins, Kyle Busch's next milestone hurdle is the great Intimidator himself, Dale Earnhardt Sr., who garnered 76 Cup Series wins over the course of his legendary career.
As you can see from the top-8 all-time Cup Series winners below, Busch may be able to catch up to Dale Sr. -- if he decides to not throw in the towel on his career anytime soon -- but he doesn't have a shot in hell of catching up to the Cup Series numbers of Richard "The King" Petty.
8. Dale Earnhardt Sr. -- 76 wins
t-6. Jimmie Johnson -- 83 wins
t-6. Cale Yarborough -- 83 wins
t-4. Bobby Allison -- 84 wins
t-4. Darrell Waltrip -- 84 wins
3. Jeff Gordon -- 93 wins
2. David Pearson -- 105 wins
1. Richard Petty -- 200 wins