Can you imagine it?

Can you imagine him dropping the window net and climbing out of his 800 horsepower, 358 cubic inch Camry Racing V8-powerd, 3,400-pound #18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota Camry NASCAR Sprint Cup car? Can you imagine him then walking over and then carefully slipping himself into the sleek molded carbon fiber honeycomb monocoques of a 700 horsepower, 2,398 cubic centimeter Toyota RVX-09 V8-motovaited, 1,331-pound Toyota TF109 Formula 1 car?

Can you see him leaving behind the half-mile bullrings of Bristol and Martinsville or the 30-degree-plus superspeedways of Talladega and Daytona or the 1.5-mile ovals of Las Vegas, Charlotte and Kansas — all but a handful of tracks that make up the U.S.-based 36-race NASCAR Sprint Cup Series — for an entirely different world? Can you then see him traveling the world and racing on roadcourse circuits with exotic names like Monza, Spa-Francorchamps, Monte Carlo, Silverstone and Shanghai?

Although Kyle Busch is only 23 years old, in 2008 the kid from Las Vegas, Nevada won eight NASCAR Sprint Cup races and an astonishing combined total of 21 races in NASCAR Sprint Cup, Nationwide and Camping World Truck Series racing competition. Oozing skill, grace and a fierce determination to win, he’s not only considered by his competitors to most prodigiously talented racer in NASCAR, but simply the best driver in the entire sport.

So just try envisioning Kyle Busch pulling up stake and leaving the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing behind to begin a second career as a Formula 1 driver. Crazy? Unfathomable? Impossible?

Perhaps not.

"Obviously the focus here is to go for Nationwide and Cup wins and championships and compete for championships, try to dismantle Jimmie [Johnson] off the top of the rung," said Kyle Busch at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the same place he won the pole for Sunday’s Shelby 427 NASCAR Sprint Cup race.

However, as far as taking a good, long look at a future in Formula 1 is concerned, Busch continued on talking.

"It's something I'd love to take a shot at one day. Hopefully, one of these days I'll get a chance to drive one and see if I'm good at it."

As recent history has now taught us — history less than a week old — there is a new Formula 1 enterprise being created from the ground up in Charlotte, North Carolina. It’s name: USF1. It’s goal: To be racing for he Formula 1 World Championship by 2010. As part of this radical new vision, the team principals want drivers — America drivers. Kyle Busch is an American driver. Perhaps the best race car driver in America.

So as a sort of converse, if asked, would Kyle Busch, much like Juan Montoya did when he left Formula 1 behind for NASCAR, leave NASCAR for Formula 1?

"It's going to be a big change," Busch explained to Scenedaily.com. "I feel like it's probably easier to go that route than it is for those guys to come to this route because these cars have less downforce, less grip, more weight on the car, less technical advancements and stuff like that. To me it seems like it would be a lot easier to drive a car that's fully equipped. It's kind of like getting in a Volkswagen Beetle versus a Ferrari. Those are kind of the differences."

Still, Busch would like to have a shot at Formula One one of these days, if the situation was right.

"It's not quite time for me to do that yet," he said. "If I could win a championship here in the next two or three years, then I wouldn't mind going over there and doing that, trying it for a few years and coming back. I think I would still be young enough where, if I could win a championship by 25, go run Formula One for a couple of years and be back by 28, I've still got plenty of time left to run in NASCAR.

"That's just what I see. A lot of things would have to work out for that to happen. You'd have to be guaranteed a spot with a team to come back with and stuff, so that's not always possible."

Eric Johnson