Quote:
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Originally Posted by VilleneuveTracy
Yes, but he has only about a dozen stock car races under his belt. Here is Tony Stewart's record after a dozen stock car races (Busch):
21st
39th
16th
17th
22nd
26th
37th
20th
40th
34th
40th
3rd
0 laps led.
JPM has had similar results but at the cup level and has shown his potential by at least qualifying well. He also has a Busch win under his belt. Thus far, I would say JPM is substantially further along than Stewart was at this stage in his stock car career. People forget that Stewart ran 36 Busch races before graduating to the cup series in 1999. In those 36 races he had a grand total of only 5 top 10's (all top 5's), 8 lead lap finishes, and 0 wins.
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Question is how much Stewart benefited from those Busch Series races, especially since the differences in cars and tires were considerably bigger back in 1998/1999 than they are these days (for example both series' ran the
exact same tire at Vegas this weekend).
So, no, at least I did in no way forget about Stewart's Busch Series starts - I just didn't put too much weight into them considering his so-so Busch Series results and also said differences.
But if one insists on mixing the two together it's going to even out more or less in the end anyway, since Montoya is running the full Busch schedule alongside the Cup one in 2007, something Stewart did not do in 1999 (he actually didn't make a single Busch Series start between 1999-2002).
Until then, however, I personally prefer comparing just the Cup stats. They are the ones that really matter, after all.