On a recent NASCAR broadcast announcer Darrel Walltrip declared that Kyle Busch could “run three wide all by himself.” Meaning the young driver from Las Vegas had the ability to run anywhere on the track, often switching grooves mid corner to find the best line.

Watch Busch in the #51 truck from last weekend’s race in Atlanta for a perfect example.

Over the first four weeks of the season Kyle Busch has been the class of the field in Trucks and the top two NASCAR stock car series. His historic first win for Toyota in the Cup race at Atlanta was the perfect exclamation point on a weekend that saw him lead both Cup and Truck series point standings, win two races, and dominate a third until a blown tire put him out of contention.

It seems that the off season move from Hendricks to Gibbs Racing has given Kyle Busch the opportunity to showcase his raw talent behind the wheel.

Once again we’ll be posting our own cross-series drivers rankings as the season progresses. However this year we’ll be making a slight change to the way we calculate the overall ranking, by focusing more on average finishing positions within individual series rather than normalizing across all series.

To qualify a driver must score a Top 10 finish in F1, IndyCar (ChampCar), NASCAR, World Rally, or make it to the final of an NHRA event.

Top 10 Drivers by the end of February 2008 are:

1. Robert Hight (NHRA)
2. Mikko Hirvonen (WRC)
3. Kyle Busch (NASCAR)
4. Gigi Galli (WRC)
5. Petter Solberg (WRC)
6. Tony Stewart (NASCAR)
7. Ryan Newman (NASCAR)
8. Jari-Matti Latvala (WRC)
9. Sebastian Loeb (WRC)
10. Greg Anderson (NHRA)

Ryan Newman (#12) takes the Daytona 500 emerging from a caution filled stop-start last twenty lap sprint to snatch victory on the last lap ahead of team mate Kurt Bush (#2), a charging Tony Stewart (#20) and the dominant Kyle Bush (#18).

This is the first Daytona 500 victory for the Penske Dodge team, and combined with the strong showing of the Gibbs Toyota team may be an indication that the domiance of the Hendricks Chevrolet team is on the wane.

Overall a fun race, with a great finish, but not one for the ages.

At the three quarter mark Kyle Busch (#18) is still out front as the second caution of the race is thrown for debris. Clint Bower (#07) was challenging. Greg Biffle (#16) wins the race off pit road and takes the lead ahead of Busch with a resurgent Tony Stewart (#20) back up to third. Kurt Busch (#2) runs fourth with the ever present Dale Jr (#88) in fifth as we wait to go green.

At the half way mark Kyle Busch (#18) is back in the lead with Jeff Gordon (#24) challenging. Ryan Newman (#12) is up to third with Dale Earnhardt Jr (#88) and an out of sequence Kurt Busch (#2) also up at the front. After an 80th lap caution the field is once more bunched up.

 At this stage there has been plenty of passing with numerous lead changes. The new cars seem to be able to maneouvre around teh track with Kyle Bush in particular running different lines, sometimes even changing mid corner.  Busch is probably the most impressive runner at the moment, but may be being a little over agressive for this stage of the race.