Al Davis, owner of the NFL's Oakland Raiders, never misses a chance to tell his players to "Just Win Baby," while also preaching the widely known motto of his organization: "A Commitment to Excellence."
It could be said that NASCAR Sprint Cup Series standout Kyle Busch, driver of the No. 18 M&M's Toyota Camry for Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR), lives by those two Raiderisms. For there is nothing more important to the 25-year-old than winning races, and he demands a commitment to excellence from not only his team but, most of all, himself.
As of January 2010, Busch has tallied 86 career wins among NASCAR's top three divisions: (Sprint Cup 19, Nationwide Series 43, Truck Series 24). Those 86 overall wins put Busch all alone in eighth place on the all-time NASCAR win list, and the young talent is well positioned to keep adding his name to the NASCAR record books for years to come.
Most NASCAR observers agree that Busch is one of the most talented drivers in the garage and is a threat to win every time he enters a race. He has scored at least one victory per season in each of NASCAR's top three divisions every year since 2005 and has won three or more races in each division each of the past three seasons.
His rise to one of the top drivers in the sport unofficially began at age 6, when Busch cruised around the cul-de-sac of his family's Las Vegas neighborhood in a makeshift go-kart. That Busch was too small to reach the throttle didn't stop him from picking up the basics. His father, Tom, held down the gas pedal while he steered the kart on the street. Once Busch was tall enough to reach the gas pedal on his own, an accelerated pace was set for his future career in motorsports.
Throughout his childhood, Busch spent countless hours as an apprentice in the family garage to his father and his older brother Kurt, learning to build and repair racecars. By age 10, Busch was a full-fledged mechanic and served as crew chief on his older brother's Dwarf car team. In 1998, shortly after his 13th birthday, Busch's driving career officially began.
Given his young age, schoolwork was always first priority. He was an honor student, but his extracurricular activities always included a racecar. Busch's parents taught him accountability, meaning if he wanted to race, he was responsible to work on, repair and pay for his own cars. Busch learned early on that carelessness on the track proved costly, resulting in wrecked equipment and not being prepared for the next event. He took pride in his racecars and raced competitors with respect.
From 1999 to 2001, Busch earned more than 65 wins in Legends cars as he racked up two track championships at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway "Bullring" before moving up to Late Model stock cars. Winning seemed to come naturally no matter what Busch drove as he captured 10 victories in Late Model competition at the Bullring in 2001.
His winning reputation and potential for success began to pique the interest of car owners in NASCAR, and on Aug. 3, 2001, at age 16, Busch made his NASCAR Camping World Truck Series debut driving for Roush Fenway Racing at O'Reilly Raceway Park near Indianapolis, where he started 23rd and finished ninth. Shortly thereafter, an unexpected ruling by NASCAR that enacted a minimum age requirement for competitors in NASCAR's top three series sidelined Busch until his 18th birthday.
Instead of sitting idle until that magic date, Busch turned his attention to the American Speed Association and ran the entire 2002 schedule. In a division that prepared the likes of Mark Martin, Alan Kulwicki and Rusty Wallace for NASCAR, Busch was successful once again by posting five top-fives and 10 top-10s in 20 starts, ending the season eighth in points. That same year, he graduated with honors – one year early, no less – from Durango High School in Las Vegas.
Prior to his 18th birthday in 2003, Busch signed with Hendrick Motorsports and quickly got down to business, winning his very first ARCA Series race at Nashville (Tenn.) Superspeedway from the pole position, and followed it up with a second win at Kentucky Speedway in Sparta in his very next outing.
Upon turning 18, he entered seven races in the Nationwide Series – the stepping stone to the elite Sprint Cup Series – and notched a runner-up finish at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway in his very first start. Busch finished the year with two second-place finishes, three top-10 finishes and five top-10 qualifying efforts.
The 2004 season started off on a high note as Busch nabbed an ARCA victory Feb. 7 in his first career start on the high banks of Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway. And after his first full season in the Nationwide Series, Busch was the youngest top rookie in series history at age 19.
Busch grabbed his first Nationwide Series victory on May 14, 2004 at Richmond (Va.) International Raceway. The win sparked four more – at Charlotte, Kentucky, O'Reilly Raceway Park and Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn. When it was all said and done, Busch ended the year with five poles, five wins, 16 top-fives, 22 top-10s and a runner-up finish in the point standings.
To gain experience and seat time in NASCAR's premier series, Busch also qualified for six Sprint Cup races. In late 2004, Busch's career dreams came true as he was selected to replace the retiring Terry Labonte in Hendrick Motorsports' No. 5 car beginning in 2005.
At age 19, Busch started the 2005 season with a record-setting pole at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif., in just his eighth career Sprint Cup start. Busch, who was 19 years, 317 days old, broke the record previously held by Donald Thomas, who was 20 years, 129 days old when he won the pole at Lakewood (Ga.) Speedway on Nov. 16, 1952. Thomas went on to win that race and remained the youngest race winner in Sprint Cup history until Busch won at Fontana on Sept. 4, 2005. Busch bested Thomas' record by a mere four days and held the title as youngest Sprint Cup winner until his JGR teammate, Joey Logano, won in June 2009 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon at 19 years, one month and four days.
Finishing out his rookie season with another victory at Phoenix International Raceway in November, Busch's first year consisted of one pole, nine top-fives, 13 top-10s, two wins and a 20th-place finish in the standings. Busch bookended his Nationwide Series Rookie of the Year trophy from 2004 by winning the Sprint Cup Series Rookie of the Year title in 2005.
The 2006 season brought more success for Busch as he notched another pole at Phoenix in April and his third race win at New Hampshire in July. In addition to the pole and race win, Busch managed to bring home 10 top-five and 18 top-10 finishes while finishing 10th in the point standings after qualifying for his first Chase for the Championship, where Busch was, yet again, the youngest driver to ever become Chase eligible.
He continued his success in his third full season in 2007 by winning at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway in March and again qualifying for the Chase. He finished the season with a remarkable 20 top-10s and 11 top-fives and went on to complete the season fifth in the final point standings – his career best.
In the offseason, Busch moved to Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) to pilot the team's legendary No. 18 machine after his four seasons at rival Hendrick Motorsports. In the meantime, JGR was in the middle of a major change of its own, having switched from Chevrolet to new manufacturer Toyota and M&M's Chocolate Candies becoming the primary sponsor of the No. 18 car.
The Busch-JGR-M&M's-Toyota combination quickly became successful and yielded eight Sprint Cup wins, 17 top-five and 21 top-10 finishes en route to a 10th-place finish in the points.
Adding to his Sprint Cup success, Busch began to win in seemingly everything he drove. By season's end, the Las Vegas native had notched 21 victories across NASCAR's top three series – Sprint Cup (eight), Nationwide (10) and Camping World Truck (three). Busch bested the previous record by seven wins for most victories overall in a season since the addition of the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series in 1995.
The 2009 season saw more of the same as Busch drove the No. 18 M&M's Toyota to victory in four races, including an emotional win at his home track of Las Vegas Motor Speedway, which was being constructed when his career was just beginning. He also scored 13 top-10 finishes en route to a 13th-place finish in the points.
Busch also won his first NASCAR title of any kind by defeating runner-up Carl Edwards by 210 points to win the 2009 Nationwide Series title driving for JGR. And the championship will likely go down as one of the most impressive in NASCAR's 62-year history.
His 5,682 points scored in 2009 were the most ever by a Nationwide Series competitor, as were the 2,698 laps he led throughout the season. Busch totaled nine wins – four more than any other driver in 2009 – while he finished second 11 times for a single-season Nationwide Series record. Busch's 25 top-five finishes were the most since Jeff Green scored 25 top-fives in a 32-race season in 2000.
Busch failed to lead a lap in only three races and led more than 50 percent of the laps in a race an incredible 12 times. The point race was never really in doubt as he topped the standings after 30 of the 35 events, including the last 29 of the season.
In addition to his Nationwide Series championship in 2009, Busch continued to participate in a limited Camping World Truck Series schedule and drove to victory lane seven times in just 15 starts.
While it seemed as if his 2008 and 2009 season would be hard to top, Busch stepped up his game yet again in 2010. Across all three of NASCAR's national series last season, Busch made 81 total starts – 36 in the Sprint Cup Series, 29 in the Nationwide Series, and 16 in the Camping World Truck Series, the latter of which he served as driver-owner of Kyle Busch Motorsports (KBM) during its inaugural season.
He won 24 races across three divisions – three in Sprint Cup, a record-smashing 13 in Nationwide and eight in the Truck Series for an incredible winning percentage of nearly 30 percent. Coupled with his 21 overall wins in 2008 and 20 overall wins in 2009, the talented 25-year-old has recorded an astounding 65 overall victories over the past three seasons. In addition to his remarkable win totals, the Las Vegas native had 45 top-five and 57 top-10 finishes, as well as 11 poles among NASCAR's top three series in 2010.
And, as Busch has done routinely since joining the powerhouse JGR organization at the beginning of the 2008 season, Busch also found several new ways to add his name to the record books in 2010.
Including the aforementioned 13 Nationwide Series wins, which shattered the mark of 10 wins set by Sam Ard in 1983 and tied by Busch in 2008, Busch broke Mark Martin's Nationwide Series career record of 8,082 laps led for his 9,466 career laps-led tally that is now an all-time high. In addition to being the all-time Nationwide Series lap leader, Busch now sits just five wins behind Martin's series record of 48 wins.
Another impressive accomplishment for Busch in 2010 came in August at Bristol, where he swept the slate of NASCAR races at the .533-mile oval to become the first driver in history to win all three of NASCAR's national touring series events in the same weekend.
While he fell short of a Sprint Cup title with the No. 18 Sprint Cup team, Busch did qualify for the Chase and finished eighth in points. However, Busch's talents helped earn two other teams a championship in 2010. In addition to his part in vaulting JGR's No. 18 Nationwide Series owner title – JGR's third title in a row – Busch guided his own KBM Toyota team to the 2010 Camping World Truck Series owner title, which was made even more impressive by the fact the team was only in its first year of existence.
Busch will again drive in all three of NASCAR's top divisions in 2011. In the Nationwide Series, Busch is scheduled to participate in select races conducted in conjunction with Sprint Cup Series events. In addition to his Sprint Cup and Nationwide duties, Busch will continue to pilot the No. 18 Toyota Tundra in select races when the Camping World Truck Series is paired with the Sprint Cup Series.
In addition to his aggressive nature behind the wheel of a race car, Busch has a strong charitable drive. He formed the Kyle Busch Foundation in 2006 to benefit child and adolescent agencies that provide safe living environments for the less fortunate. The Foundation currently supports homes in Grand Rapids, Mich., Concord, N.C., Atlanta, Mesa, Ariz., and Las Vegas.
Busch, recently married, resides in Mooresville, N.C., with his wife Samantha.
Jimmie Johnson's Number 48 Nascar Racer is on loan to the Cars of Dreams museum to help as an attraction for fundraisers. (In the future it will be replaced with Jimmie's Number 24 car).
Three time NASCAR Sprint cup champion Jimmie Johnson drove this #48 Lowe's Chevrolet (Chassis #48-297) nine times during the 2004 and 2005 seasons, as well as the 2006 cup championship season. This car visited victory lane three times, including the sweep of both Pocono races in 2004, and the UAW-Daimler-Chrysler 400 at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway in March 2005. In addition to the wins, this car has two top fives and one Top 10 finish, contributing to an eighth place average finish during its days of competition.
Car #48-297 comes built complete by the Hendrick Motorsports #48 race shop and includes an authentic Hendrick race engine rebuilt with the certified SB2, 358 C.I. block raced by Jimmie Johnson to win the August '04 race at Pocono Raceway.
The car comes with certificates of authenticity, extensive documentation, and a collection of race day photographs. Jimmie Johnson is only the second driver in NASCAR history to win three consecutive Cup series championships.
DATE
TRACK
QUAL.
FINISH
3/7/04
LAS VEGAS
12
16
6/13/04
POCONO
5
1
7/11/04
CHICAGO
3
2
8/1/04
POCONO
14
1
9/5/04
CALIFORNIA
16
14
10/10/04
KANSAS
4
32
3/12/05
LAS VEGAS
10
1
6/12/05
POCONO
21
6
2/26/06
CALIFORNIA
3
2
Driver Profile - Jimmie Johnson
Position: Driver
10th year with Hendrick
Personal
Date of birth: 9/17/1975
Hometown: El Cajon, Calif.
Current residence: Mooresville, N.C.
Spouse: Chandra
Career Highlights
Jimmie Johnson made professional sports history in 2009 by earning his fourth consecutive NASCAR Sprint Cup Series title. He is the only driver in the sport’s 61-year history to accomplish the feat.
His amazing accomplishment this year also earned him several awards. He became the first race car driver to be named the Associated Press's Male Athlete of the Year in the organization’s 78-year history and was voted Driver of the Year for the third time in his career, joining Mario Andretti, Darrell Waltrip and Jeff Gordon as three-time winners of the prestigious award.
After only eight full seasons and 291 starts, Johnson has rewritten the sport’s record books. The El Cajon, Calif.-native led the point standings the final seven races of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup in 2009, finishing the season 141 points ahead of second-place finisher and teammate Mark Martin. It was Johnson’s eighth-consecutive top-five finish in the point standings.
Since Johnson made his full-time Cup Series debut in 2002 (ran three races in ’01), his 47 career wins are 22 more than any other competitor during that time and place him second among active drivers on NASCAR’s all-time wins list. He has also earned 18 “Chase” wins since its inception in 2004, 12 more than his closest competitor.
Entering the 2010 season, Johnson is the only driver to win at least three races in each of his first eight Sprint Cup Series seasons. He had seven wins and four poles in 2009 and is the only driver to qualify for the Chase for the Cup each year since the format was adopted.
The 34-year-old Californian clinched his first championship in 2006 finishing 56 points ahead of second-place finisher Matt Kenseth. He followed that up in dramatic fashion with a 77-point win over teammate Jeff Gordon in 2007. His third championship came in 2008 when he edged out Carl Edwards by 69 points.
But Johnson’s impact isn’t limited to the race track.
Johnson and his wife, Chandra, launched the Jimmie Johnson Foundation in 2006. The foundation is dedicated to helping children, families and communities in need. In March of 2007, the couple opened Jimmie Johnson’s Victory Lanes, a four lane bowling center for campers at Pattie and Kyle Petty’s Victory Junction Camp in Randleman, N.C.
In addition to supporting organizations such as the Hendrick Marrow Program and the Make-A-Wish Foundation, the Johnsons host the Jimmie Johnson Foundation Golf Tournament in San Diego each year. Since its inception, the tournament has raised more than $2 million for Johnson’s hometown, helping fund projects such as the construction of four Habitat for Humanity homes.
In 2009, nearly $1 million was awarded through the Jimmie Johnson Foundation/Lowe’s Toolbox for Education Champions Grant program. Public schools in California, Oklahoma and North Carolina, where the Johnsons grew up and currently reside, received grants to address basic needs including science and technology, outdoor classrooms, playground construction and accelerated reading programs.
While Johnson’s success on and off the track has come in a relatively short amount of time, it took years of hard work, dedication and help from a variety of people to get there.
With the support of his family, Johnson’s racing career started on 50cc motorcycles at the age of five. His father, Gary, worked for a tire company and his mother, Cathy, drove a school bus. With Jimmie and younger brothers Jarit and Jessie in tow, the family spent most of their weekends camping and doing what they loved - racing. During these weekends, it wasn't unusual to see Gary preparing the tracks for the kids to race and Cathy running the concession stand.
Johnson was successful on motorcycles at an early age. By the time he was eight, he won the 60cc class championship despite blowing out his knee with several races remaining in the season.
From motorcycles, Johnson graduated to the Mickey Thompson Entertainment Group (MTEG) Stadium Racing Series where he won more awards. A 1993 meeting arranged by his mentor, supercross champion Rick Johnson (no relation), proved fortuitous for the eager driver.
While racing at the Los Angeles Coliseum, Rick Johnson introduced his young protégé to the Executive Director of GM Racing, Herb Fishel. The protégé lived up to his billing, impressing Fishel with his driving ability and business acumen.
Fishel kept his eye on Johnson that year. He later walked into an off-road racing team meeting and threw a picture of Johnson on the table informing the team that Johnson was the man they needed to drive their car.
Johnson seized the opportunity, spending the next few years driving buggies and trucks in off-road stadium and desert races. Johnson also improved his ability to connect with fans and potential sponsors by reporting for ESPN in the Short Course Off-Road Drivers Association Series (SODA).
In 1995, the work paid off in another way as Johnson met his future car owners Stan and Randy Herzog while working in the series. The following year Johnson began driving the brothers' off-road truck. After two years, Johnson was ready for the next opportunity and crafted a proposal, taking it to his friend, Fishel. Fishel gave the owners and their ambitious driver a shot and in 1998 Johnson climbed behind the wheel of an American Speed Association car and got his first taste of pavement racing and never looked back.
His victories in the ASA Series paved the way for his move to NASCAR (initially in the Nationwide Series) where his winning ways continue as the current NASCAR Sprint Cup Champion.
Thank you Rick Hendrick for The R07 engine, the Newest Generation of Nascar power plants. Mr. Hendrick built the motor specifically for Mr. Staluppi, as a gift to be displayed in The Cars of Dreams Museum, helping to attract supporters for the many charity fundraisers held there.
Chevy’s R07 Racing Engine: a Chip Off the Old Small Block FEBRUARY 7, 2008
Patrick Mahoney Associate editor
When GM’s 1955 engine architecture wasn’t up to the Toyota challenge, the automaker responded with a whole new design.
First, GM developed the new Impala SS exclusively for NASCAR Nextel Cup Competition. Now, it’s replacing the smallblock, second-generation (SB2) engine, NASCAR’s workhorse since 1998. Besides being more competitive, the new powerplant will be safer, less costly, and more reliable. The R07, short for “Racing 2007,” is GM’s first purpose-built NASCAR racing engine.
The evolution of the GM racing engine paralleled that of the smallblock V8 production engine, now in its fourth generation. Until now, all of GM’s small-block racing engines have shared key dimensions such as cylinder-bore spacing, camshaft location, and deck height with the original small-block V8 introduced in 1955.
GM Racing supplies the cylinder block, cylinder heads, and intake manifold for the new engine package. It also developed the water pump, rocker covers, valley plate, and front cover. Teams and independent engine builders assemble these components using proprietary parts, including rotating and reciprocating assemblies, valvetrains, oil pumps, and fuel and ignition systems.
“New manufacturers coming into NASCAR pushed the envelope with engines that had no link to production powerplants, while our engines were based on the 1955 architecture of the first small-block V8,” explains Jim Covey, NASCAR engine development manager for GM Racing. When Toyota came in, it had to develop a new engine because it didn’t have a production twovalve pushrod engine. NASCAR Nextel Cup leveled the field with new parameters for all manufacturers, which let Chevy develop the R07. The new engine reflects the last 50 years of advances in racing technology.
“NASCAR’s parameters for the new generation of engines offer a range of choices on key dimensions and design features. Our job is to carefully balance the trade-offs,” says Pat Suhy, GM Racing Group manager, Oval Track.
Per NASCAR regulations, the R07 displaces a maximum of 358 cu in. and retains the classic twovalve pushrod design. Some of the key technical advances are 4.500-in. cylinder-bore centers (versus 4.400 in the SB2) that improve coolant flow around the cylinder barrels, a new six-head-bolt pattern that improves the head-gasket seal and reduces cylinder-bore distortion, and a cooling system that reduces heat at critical locations. A cast camshaft tunnel, inboard piston squirter galleries, and overhead oilfeed galleries let technicians assemble the engine faster. Relocating the fuel pump and eliminating external oil and coolant lines improved safety.
The camshaft in the R07 sits higher in the block than it does in the SB2. This means shorter and stiffer pushrods and better valvetrain dynamics at high rpm. Tests have shown that raising the cam added around 500 rpm. And raising the cam made room for the inboard piston squirters that cool the underside of the pistons with oil.
The new engine has provisions for driving a conventional diaphragm fuel pump from the camshaft. A remote-mounted mechanical fuel pump can be driven by a cable from the rear of the camshaft. This way, the fuel pump can move to the rear of the car, near the fuel cell, where it’s less vulnerable.
Raising the crankshaft also let the team isolate the camshaft tunnel from the crankcase, thus minimizing windage losses caused by oil falling from the cam onto the rotating crankshaft. Isolating the camshaft tunnel also helps contain valvetrain parts in the event of a failure. And with a dry sump, oil is scavenged from the cam tunnel.
The valley plate has coolant passages running through it. The old engines had a coolant passage running through the manifold. This meant mechanics had to drain the coolant before pulling the manifold.
As for the cylinder heads, the R07’s aluminum heads resemble production LS-Series small-block cylinder heads with alternating intake and exhaust valves. This contrasts with the “mirror port” design on the SB2.
“In the SB2, if you split the cylinder head down the middle, the intake ports from cylinders 1 and 3 point rearward, toward the carburetor. And if you split the head between 3 and 5, the ports from cylinders 5 and 7 point forward, toward the carburetor, like mirror images. With an alternating configuration, you don’t have two exhaust ports right next to each other, generating a huge amount of heat. Though we have alternating valves, we still oriented the intake runners toward a central position so the cylinders in the front tilt toward the back and those in the back tilt frontward. It’s more lineof- sight. You’re feeding fuel and air at a central point, giving you the straightest shot,” says Covey.
The R07’s shallow valve angle and compact combustion chamber produce a 12:1 compression ratio, the maximum mandated by NASCAR. The aluminum intake manifold has an extended plenum. With a small plenum, the end runners (which carry fuel to the individual cylinders) are longer than the center runners. Extending the plenum reduces the length of the end runners, making them more like the center runners. That way, they tune at the same rpm, which improves fuel distribution among the cylinders.
The valve springs on the new engine still get oiled. The old SB2 had external lines that ran from an oil gallery in the block up to the cylinder head to cool the valve springs. Now, all passages are internal, eliminating lines hanging off the end of the block. “We’d never done this in a NASCAR engine, but the rules changed significantly when Toyota entered. Before then, everything was production-based. I think NASCAR realized it wasn’t fair to hamper some of the guys, like Chevy with its 1955 architecture, while Toyota came in with something brand new.
The rocker covers are rigid cast aluminum with O-ring seals. The valve-spring oilers are pressure fed from passages in the cylinder heads. Eliminating external oil lines reduces the likelihood of leakage. “Given a clean sheet of paper, we integrated those coolant passages or lines into the block and cylinder-head castings. Before (in the SB2), a lot of those oil galleries and other features weren’t there,” says Covey.
The GM team also designed a high-efficiency water pump and a carbon-fiber front cover that shields the camshaft belt drives. To design the R07, they used many of the same tools used to design production engines, including solid 3D modeling, computer-aided engineering, computational fluid dynamics, and finite-element analysis. While CFD is often associated with aerodynamic development of race cars, it can also help to analyze the behavior of fluids, like the coolant flowing through the block and cylinder heads. “You want to put the water where the heat is generated, and you want it distributed evenly, to cool the cylinder bores all the way around,” says Covey.
But improving design in one area affected other areas. FEA helped the designers analyze the strength while minimizing the weight of the block and cylinder heads. “Putting water between the cylinder bores resulted in thinner cylinder bores. Do you want the cooling or do you want the strength? By spreading the bore centers we got sufficient bore-wall thickness and still brought in water.
Probably the most difficult aspect was getting the foundry to hold the tolerances we need. We basically have a 0.00001-in.-wide water passage,” Covey explains. “In the past, you either overdesigned and ended up with a heavy part or underdesigned and had to add material. We now have two thin walls separated by a sliver of water, but FEA and CFD showed it would work. Nothing was lost; adding water only added complexity to the casting.”
As for the new head-bolt pattern, the racing team only did what production did years earlier: They separated the head-bolt columns from the bore wall, so when the head bolt is tightened there’s no pulling on the wall. And the sixhead- bolt pattern creates a more even clamp load on the gasket.
Fast forwarding through five decades of technology should stand GM and Team Chevy in good stead for years to come.
The 5.8-liter V8 R07 NASCAR motor moves Team Chevy ahead 50 years.
Toyota Phase 9 Engine -
As used in NASCAR competition.
Designed and Built by Toyota Racing Development, Costa Mesa, CA USA.
