The NASCAR Busch Series needs to change more than its name next year.  
The 2008 season will begin with a new title sponsor and the Nationwide Series will be reborn with the same old problem — Busch-whackers. (Sorry, but there’s just no way to come up with a new nickname that is so a propos for the Cup drivers who invade the series every weekend.)

NASCAR no longer has Busch. Now, it needs to get rid of the whackers.

NASCAR no longer has Busch. Now, it needs to get rid of the whackers.
No one in NASCAR has done a better job than Joe Gibbs Racing in the recruitment of developmental drivers, but this past week the team lost one of its top prospects when Brad Coleman left for a full-time Nationwide Series ride with Brewco Motorsports.
This is the second such defection for JGR — Aric Almirola left to share the wheel with the ever-retiring Mark Martin at DEI. Earlier this year at Milwaukee, Almirola was Busch-whacked right out of the JGR’s No. 20 Busch car by Denny Hamlin in mid-race — and Almirola was leading.
But why did Coleman leave a gig with JGR for an independent team with a first-year owner and no Nextel Cup program in place?
Let him tell you:
“It looked like things were shaping up for a full-time run for the championship with JGR in 2008, but after the Gibbs Cup drivers had filled the sponsored Nationwide seats there was no room left for a full season,” Coleman said. “It would have been difficult for me to run another partial season in 2008 because I want to be in the race car every weekend and I am thankful for Brewco and Kleenex providing me that opportunity.”
So, after Tony Stewart, Kyle Busch and Hamlin cherry-picked the races they wanted to run in 2008, Coleman and other JGR developmental drivers were left to fight over the scraps like orphans in a Dickens novel.
“Please, sir, might I have Nashville — or perhaps Kentucky or Atlanta if it pleases you.”
It is a double-edged sword for NASCAR. Some Cup drivers are expected and even needed to fill the field in order for some fans to be interested enough to attend Busch Series races.
But if Cup drivers make up the majority of the fields every week, then developmental drivers such as Coleman have nowhere to go. Where will they get the laps they need in order to graduate to the next level?
NASCAR’s future is sitting in idle, while the Cup drivers use the series as a play toy. The newest chic thing to do is to field their own teams and either drive for themselves or put their buddies in the seat.
For instance, Bobby Labonte routinely drives for Kevin Harvick in the Busch Series — that is, when Harvick isn’t driving for Harvick. The odd-man-out in that instance was youngster Kertus Davis, who struggled to perform, but who also was given a very short leash on which to run.
It’s not as if Labonte needs the laps to prove himself — and neither does Stewart, Busch or Hamlin, who were standing in Coleman’s way.
On his radio show recently, Stewart defended Busch-whacking by saying that “drivers have a right to make a living.”
Yes, he said “make a living.” In relation to Stewart and other Cup stars of his magnitude, Busch Series money is closer to “making a per diem.”
Funny enough, on that same radio show, Harvick came up with the most plausible solution to the problem.
If you really want the whackers to go away, he said, simply move the Busch Series races and times so that it is physically impossible for Cup drivers to compete in both on most weekends.
For instance, if the Cup series is in Atlanta on Sunday afternoon, then schedule the Busch Series race for Sunday evening in Wisconsin (or wherever) moments after the checkered flag drops on Atlanta. Turn the Busch pre-race into a Cup-watching party on the big screens to rev up the fans and then go green.
It’s not the only solution — or maybe not even the best — but it’s something, and it’s a needed change.
Keeping things the same in the new Nationwide Series makes about as much sense as “Nationwide-whackers.”