Aged 24 and with his sixth full season of NASCAR competition now behind him, Kyle Busch remains the fiery, passionate competitor that has proven to be both an asset and, at times, a detriment.

“Rest assured, America, the edges on him haven’t been ground down just yet,” says Jeff Dickerson, Busch’s spotter, agent and advisor. “A guy wins a championship like this and everybody wants to say, ‘Look, he’s matured. He’s become the complete package.’ I think we’re a long way from seeing the complete package.”

So in this space, your mind will not be filled with flowery visions that Busch has suddenly seen the light, or that he will become a different person now that he’s won the 2009 Nationwide Series title.

No one changes overnight – if at all – but this record-setting championship season may have taught Busch something: To race smarter.

All anyone has to do to understand that lesson is to compare Busch’s seasons in the Nationwide and Sprint Cup series.

He completely dominated the Nationwide circuit for most of the year, easily breaking the all-time laps led mark, compiling the most points ever, winning nine races and finishing second an astounding 11 times.

But in Cup, Busch all-too-often showed flashes of the Bad Kyle, trying to force a 10th-place car to the front and paying the consequences just often enough to miss the Chase.

It’s no wonder, then, that Busch stood on Miami Beach on a beautiful Florida afternoon prior to the Homestead race weekend and vowed to put the lessons learned while winning the Nationwide championship to good use.

“Next year is going to be about being smart – being as smart as you can, not push it as much,” Busch says. “People may not like that from me – a lot of people like when I go balls-out all the time and race every lap like it’s the last – but unfortunately that’s not what it comes down to anymore, where you have to finish well to win a championship.”

Busch’s Evolution

Is that even possible? Can Busch really become a smarter racer?

In some ways, he already has. Busch says had he known in 2004 what he knows now, he may not have had to wait five more years to win his first championship.

Back then, Busch was running the No. 5 car for Hendrick Motorsports in the series then known as the Busch Series.

A rookie, Busch won five times and challenged eventual champ Martin Truex Jr. all season. The two swapped the points lead four times in five weeks during the middle of the season, and Busch still had a shot to catch Truex with two races to go.

He entered Darlington trailing by 161 points. But Busch remembers the contact with Ron Hornaday that nearly knocked the nose off his car, then recalls how the team got behind on pit strategy.

The next thing he knew, “We were falling back through the field and I spun out and wrecked,” he says.

It was one of those avoidable incidents, the kind born out of frustration and trying to do too much. The Nationwide Series champion of 2009 wouldn’t do that kind of thing now.

“Exactly,” he says. “Then, I was just so mad trying to make up positions, trying so hard to win the race. … Especially for as early in the race as that was, it was pretty dumb what I did.

“The approach going forward, especially on the Cup side for next year, is to try to finish in the respective position we’re running in.”

Denny Hamlin, Busch’s teammate at Joe Gibbs Racing, says missing the Chase probably had something to do with a change in mindset. Hamlin has long preached that consistency is preferable to wins – at least the way the NASCAR points system is structured.

Now, in light of the way he won the Nationwide championship, Hamlin thinks it’s realistic Busch could race smarter.

“I think he knew if he just kind of finished some of the races where he got frustrated and really ended up going backward or into a crash, he would have made the Chase,” Hamlin says. “So I think it’s just Kyle progressing and maybe realizing that … you don’t have to go out there and win every single week.”

Dickerson says Busch has discovered that the “chicks dig the longball” approach to racing – or going for the home-run win every race – may not always be the best option.

“Second-places aren’t cool and he doesn’t like them, but the premise is right – if he doesn’t run second 11 times, he doesn’t win the championship,” he says.

Of course, all this is tough for Busch to swallow. He would have rather the 11 runnerup finishes been victories, giving him 20 wins this season.

But outrunning Carl Edwards and Brad Keselowski – who each had seasons that may have won the championship in most other years – has grabbed his attention.

“You’d rather have your seconds be firsts or your thirds be seconds,” Busch says, this being a vast understatement for him. “But ultimately you do what you can to win a championship, and that’s what got us the championship this year, because of our consistency that we had.

“So yeah, I could see the necessity to have those finishes to win a championship.”

Controlling Emotions

Busch enjoys finishing second about as much as a sumo wrestler enjoys going on a diet.

He makes little attempt to mask his outrage on days when he ends the race in any position but first, and still storms off without comment more often than his public relations representatives and reporters trailing behind would prefer.

Of course, much of that fire is the same thing that makes him great. So the thought is, if he learns to harness the negative emotions, observers believe he could be lethal.

“He’s nowhere close to a finished product,” Dickerson says. “He’s still a work in progress. If he can just take the next step on Sundays, the sky is the limit. When he does, it’s going to be amazing.”

Busch knows precisely what he’s doing when he reacts to losing with a poor attitude. But he can’t always help himself. 

“It’s frustrating on those days because you know you’ve been so close, or you’ve led the most laps, and your team deserves to win the race,” Busch says. “That’s the biggest frustration, is not being able to win for those guys.”

In addition to racing smarter, those close to Busch want to see him become better prepared to deal with the speedbumps that come with a long season. Dickerson says Busch “hasn’t put it all together” in terms of confidence, handling adversity and “weathering the hiccups” that even the greatest drivers cannot avoid.

Because he’s still unfinished, Dickerson says Busch “won this championship on sheer talent and will.”

“I think winning it shows him that when he puts his mind to something, he can do it,” Dickerson says.

Maybe the lessons from his first NASCAR championship will carry him into the future.

Will it change him?

That remains to be seen.

Shout Out to NASCAR Scene.