Does Busch have an advantage?

His sweep of both the Cup and Nationwide races at Chicagoland Speedway prompted familiar questions about NASCAR's hottest driver.

Is Kyle Busch that good? Or do the Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas have a horsepower advantage over the rest of the field?

The quick answers are yes and yes.

On the Cup side, it appears Busch is just that good. He's won seven races on seven different tracks covering every discipline NASCAR has thrown at him, from short track to restrictor plate to a road course.

The Nationwide side of things is a different story. It seems no matter who Joe Gibbs puts in his cars, they win. Busch's win at Chicagoland made it 14 victories in 20 races for JGR. Afterwards, amidst a loud backdrop of complaints from the non-Toyota teams, NASCAR officials took 10 Nationwide engines from different teams back to their North Carolina research and development facility for testing.

The complaints have come from everywhere. After the Nationwide race at Daytona earlier this month, Clint Bowyer said the JGR Nationwide No. 20 car had such an advantage that even a monkey could drive it to victory lane.

And this past weekend, Carl Edwards, commenting on running in the Nationwide series again next season, said he would only want to do it as long as there was a level playing field and the Toyotas did not continue to have a horsepower advantage.

According to horsepower tests run earlier this season after the Nationwide races at Atlanta and Milwaukee, the Toyota engine does have an advantage, although the advantage was seen by NASCAR officials as being minor.

Team owner Jack Roush insists the so-called "minor" horsepower advantage coupled with a distinct aerodynamic advantage possessed by the Nationwide series Camrys is all the more reason why the Nos. 20 and 18 Joe Gibbs Racing cars have won the majority of this season's Nationwide races.

It also hasn't helped that while the Toyotas are running its latest generation engine, Ford and Chevrolet are running an older engine. Chevrolet execs have lobbied to be allowed to introduce their newest generation NASCAR engine, the R07, into the Nationwide series, but so far their voices have fallen on deaf ears.

NASCAR officials are expected to address this apparent issue in the near future, perhaps sanctioning Toyota's engines with a modification that would remove some of the suspected advantageous horsepower advantage.

On the Cup side, however, things aren't so clear cut.

Are Gibbs cars better?

Over the past several years, we’ve seen teams go on the kind of hot streak JGR currently enjoys. In 2005, it was Roush who qualified all five of his cars for the Chase. Last year it was Hendrick Motorsports which dominated the NASCAR landscape.

This year, it's Gibbs. The organization has made the transition from Chevrolet to Toyota a nearly seamless one and apparently they've been able to extract the kind of performance out of the Toyota bodies and engines that likely has been there all along, according to Chevrolet's Pat Suhy.

There has been talk in the Cup garage that the other reason why the Gibbs cars – and especially the 18 car – have been so good is that the JGR engineering staff has developed a very successful front end geometry that allows the new CoT car to turn easier, erasing one of the new car's biggest complaints.

As possible proof, an official from a competing team pointed out that when Busch wrecked his car in Saturday morning practice at Pocono last month, JGR crew members were quick to cover up the front end with tarps as to not allow anyone else access to see how the front end, despite its damage, had been set up. Then, crew members hastily removed key parts to the front suspension as to not allow further inspection.

This is apparently not the first time JGR has been ahead of the curve on front-end setups. Veteran observers point to JGR's mastery of the coil-binding setup in 2005 that led to Tony Stewart's late-season charge to the title that year.

Then there's the matter of engines.

NASCAR, as a matter of course, regularly takes several cars after a Cup race and puts them on a chassis dynamometer to determine horsepower differences between manufacturers.

This is a flawed procedure, according to several key engine specialists, who believe that in order to obtain correct horsepower data, any reliable testing should be done in a more controlled environment.

Despite their best intentions, NASCAR's post-race chassis dyno test is not.

The post-race chassis dyno tests are almost always conducted late in the day, when the air temperature is at its warmest. If, for example, the test includes 10 cars, by the time officials get around to the 10th car, it's several hours later. The air has cooled down, it's typically more humid and the engines and cars themselves have had ample time to cool down, changing their characteristics dramatically.

This often results in flawed data.

However, flawed data notwithstanding, NASCAR officials do get a pat on the back for even doing the comparative testing and for making the results of those tests available to the entire garage.

There is no other auto racing sanctioning body in the world that does the kind of comparative testing that NASCAR does on engines or on bodywork in the wind tunnel. This comes as a result of the sanctioning body's decades-long battle to keep the competition on a level playing field.

In the past, when either a horsepower or aerodynamic advantage was discovered either by testing or through extensive lobbying by team owners or manufacturer representatives, NASCAR went to great pains to make things as even as possible. Typically, their reaction was to remove the apparent advantage.

Normally, NASCAR's chassis dyno tests on Cup cars is done three or more times in a season. This year, they have not done one since the season opener in Daytona.

Witnessing the domination by the foreign manufacturer, fans have worked themselves into an uproar, convincing themselves that Toyota has a horsepower advantage that NASCAR officials are deliberately ignoring.

However, earlier this year Jeff Gordon scoffed at the notion, saying Toyota has no horsepower advantage on the Cup side.

"No, I don't feel like that's a concern," said Gordon. "I think we're in good shape horsepower wise. The only place that I feel like the Toyota's are getting us horsepower wise is maybe on the restrictor-plate tracks. They do seem to have a little bit more power there. I feel really good about our power this year. I think our power has been awesome."

Gordon isn't alone. In fact, his contention is backed by a Chevrolet executive.

"Toyota has done a fabulous job," said the GM exec, who requested anonymity. "So has Gibbs. As a Chevy shop, Gibbs was one of the best.

"With the new engine rules established a few years ago, we all have the same box in which to work with. Shame on us if we've not made the same power as Toyota."

However, in an attempt to keep up with Toyota, it is expected that Chevrolet officials will submit a newly designed intake manifold for its R07 engine to NASCAR technical inspectors later this summer, for use beginning in 2009.

Hendrick teams have also reportedly been working on a front-end setup of their own, and a team insider says that the second half of the season will look quite different than the first half for the HMS teams.

Dodge teams continue to struggle while the newest generation engine continues to undergo development. It is expected to make its competitive debut selectively in the fall before all Dodge teams begin using it in 2009.

Ford has been silent on the introduction of a new generation engine. Its current version has been in use for over a decade. Ford officials have expressed a desire to develop a new engine based upon the same guidelines as the Toyota, Chevy and Dodge engines.

NASCAR's deadline for submission of new engines and parts is early September.

So, if there is no horsepower advantage, then why did Kyle Busch have an apparently easy time overtaking Jimmie Johnson in the final laps of the LifeLock.com 400 at Chicagoland?

The advantage was nothing more than race strategy and a car that was better on short runs.

At the start of the race it was all Busch. Then he fell back, relinquishing the lead to others. Throughout the middle portion of the race, crew chief Steve Addington worked to make Busch's Toyota better on long runs. Unfortunately, according to Addington, they didn't quite meet their goal.

In the late stages of the race, Jimmie Johnson had a better car on long runs. Busch did not. After the second to last restart, Busch pulled out to a lead, but Johnson caught him.

But a late caution flag change the complexion of the race. It was no longer about the long runs, but a two-lap sprint to the finish.

Instead of settling for second, which he easily could have done, Busch decided to challenge Johnson for the lead with a deft move to the outside. Not everyone could have pulled off the move. Busch did, lending credence to the idea that maybe, just maybe, the real advantage lies in the critical piece of the puzzle located immediately behind the steering wheel.