Most of you are probably familiar with the term "Buschwhacking", where Cup drivers race in what used to be the Busch Series (now the Xfinity Series). It has frequently been a topic of discussion over the years, as Cup drivers often take wins away from Busch/Nationwide/Xfinity regulars.

Most recently, Kyle Busch has received the majority of the criticism in this discussion. Is that criticism deserved? Well, Kyle has driven in 179 Xfinity races for Joe Gibbs racing since 2008. He has won 69 of them--a winning percentage of just under 40%. How does that compare to other past Buschwackers?

First, let's look at a list of the number of Busch races won by non-Cup drivers each year. Note that some of these numbers could be off slightly. For example, if a driver ran 20 Cup races and 20 Busch races, should that driver be considered a full-time Cup driver or not? There isn't always a clear answer. In any case, I think you will see a clear trend in the numbers below.

1982: 20/29
1983: 28/35
1984: 23/29
1985: 20/27
1986: 17/31
1987: 18/27
1988: 16/30
1989: 19/29
1990: 21/31
1991: 17/31
1992: 24/31
1993: 16/28
1994: 15/28
1995: 15/26
1996: 15/26
1997: 15/30
1998: 20/31
1999: 20/32
2000: 16/32
2001: 24/33
2002: 22/34
2003: 17/34
2004: 22/34
2005: 12/35
2006: 2/35
2007: 3/35 *
2008: 6/35
2009: 5/35
2010: 2/35
2011: 6/34
2012: 15/34
2013: 5/33
2014: 10/33
2015: 10/33

* Practically, 2007 only featured 2 non-Cup winners. Included in this total is the infamous win technically earned by Aric Almirola, but actually earned by Denny Hamlin who replaced him part-way through the race because that's what the sponsor wanted.

From the inception of the Busch Series in 1982 until 2004, at least half of the races each season were won by non-Cup regulars. That figure was as high as about 80% in 1983 and 1992.

People who defend Kyle Busch often point back to Mark Martin, who also raced in the Busch Series a lot and collected a number of wins. But Martin never ran more than about half of the Busch races in any given season, and he never won more than 25% of the races in a season. There were only 5 seasons in which Martin won more than 3 Busch races. Martin won a career total of 49 Busch Series races. Kyle Busch won more races than that in just 5 seasons (2008-2011 and 2013). So while Martin did win a decent number of Busch races, Martin didn't impact the series nearly as much as Busch has.

Overall, though, the Buschwhacking problem primarily dates back to 2005. That was the season in which Carl Edwards ran in both series (Cup and Busch) full-time. It was actually his first full-time season in either series, and he ultimately finished 3rd in points in both series. Several other Cup drivers, such as Harvick and Newman, were also starting to run more Busch races.

Then, 2006 was the year that no less than 7 Cup drivers decided to run the Busch Series full-time (Harvick, Edwards, Bowyer, Hamlin, Yeley, Kyle Busch, and Sorenson). That is why 2006 really stands out in the list above. Just 2 races were won by non-Cup drivers. One was by Paul Menard at Milwaukee, the year before he moved up to Cup. (And if Cup drivers didn't receive points, as it is now, Menard would have been the 2006 Busch Series champion.) The other is a race most of us remember--David Gilliland's surprise win at Kentucky. Gilliland only ran 9 races in 2006, and that was his only top-25 finish (no, that's not a typo). That race catapulted Gilliland into the Cup Series, driving for Yates Racing, but has never again won another top-level NASCAR race. But the other 33 races were all won by Cup regulars.

The next several seasons continued to feature single-digit numbers of races that were not won by Cup regulars. 2012 was a somewhat better season, when nearly half of the races were won by non-Cup regulars, but that number dropped back to 5 in 2013. The last two seasons have each featured 10 races out of 33 won by non-Cup regulars. This year looks to be similar, with just 5 non-Cup winners so far.

So, the facts show us that Buschwhacking has not always been such a problem. From 1982 through 2004, between 50% and 80% of the Busch races each season were won by non-Cup drivers. But since 2005, those numbers plunge to between 6% and 44%. Kyle Busch has certainly won the most races during that time period, but he is obviously not the only Buschwhacker that there is.

The schedule NASCAR has developed is at least partly to blame. In the 1980s and 1990s, these two series had quite a few weekends where they raced at different tracks, making it much more difficult for Cup drivers to be in Busch races. This year, there are just 4 separate race weekends for the Xfinity Series: 2 at Iowa and 2 on road courses.

If NASCAR changed the schedule so there are more split race weekends, that would certainly help. Not awarding points to Cup regulars really hasn't changed much, because they can still claim wins. Another idea might be to do the reverse of the old rookie rule--only allow Cup regulars to run a maximum of 7 Xfinity races each year. One other idea would be to recognize the best non-Cup regular in each Xfinity race by giving them credit for a win that would count toward qualifying for the Xfinity chase.

Do you think this is a problem, or do you think Cup drivers should be able to race as much as they want in lower series? If you agree that it is a problem, do you have any suggestions/ideas to share?