Kyle Busch's championship ending may be just the beginning

— -- HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- Possibly the greatest driver of all time attended the 2015 Sprint Cup season finale. Mario Andretti didn't come to Homestead-Miami Speedway because of some guy named Kyle Busch. He joined the crowd to see Jeff Gordon in his final race.

Not just Andretti showed up. Three-time Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton stood with Gordon by his car prerace as well. And then fans came, too, including at least one who said he saw Gordon's first race in Atlanta in 1992 and had to see his last. Since that first race, Gordon has tallied 93 wins and four Sprint Cup titles.

Someday people might come to see Kyle Busch the way they came to see Gordon, who couldn't capture a fifth championship Sunday in part because Busch did what many expected him to do since his first Cup start 390 races ago, on March 7, 2004 at Las Vegas. Busch finally won a Sprint Cup championship.

In a weird way that capped a weird season in which Busch missed the first 11 races because of a broken right leg and broken left foot suffered in a race at Daytona, the unexpected that Busch did Sunday secured his first Cup title. He didn't do the things that Kyle Busch does: While he can often make a car appear to magically accomplish feats not mechanically possible, he can also stretch the limits of the car beyond the point of no return and hit the wall.

If Busch keeps racing the way he raced Sunday, Gordon doesn't have much of a doubt that Busch could end up with 93 wins and four titles. Or more. The 30-year-old Busch earned his 34th career victory Sunday in the Ford EcoBoost 400 to go along with his first title.

"I guess I feel more at peace a little bit," Busch said. "I've always thought I've been in this sport and [feeling] kind of, not because of things that had been said to me, but just because of you just feel like you're fighting for a job. There are always younger, better people coming up through the ranks behind you.

"I was like, 'You know what? If I'm meant to be a race-car driver, if I'm meant to be a champion, I'll continue to be here for the long haul, so I'll just stop focusing on worrying about my job and just let it be.' That seemed to help."

Despite his successes throughout his career, Busch did have a point when he had to fight for a job, and Gordon has seen the differences in his former Hendrick Motorsports teammate who found himself out of a ride when the team hired Dale Earnhardt Jr. (and kept Casey Mears) after the 2007 season.

"He's more talented than I am," Gordon said. "To me the edge that I always had on Kyle, as talented as he is, as fast as he is, is that sometimes he never knew where to stop pushing the car to the edge, especially at a track like this when you're right up against the wall, taking the right side off of it.

"We saw it even in the Xfinity Series [on Saturday]. If you can put pressure on him, you can kind of force him to push it over the edge because he's capable of pushing it so far."

Busch gave a simple reason of why he didn't hit the wall Sunday:

"Not [hard] when you have a car driving as good as mine was," Busch said.

Busch has appeared uncommonly relaxed this week, his actions backing up those words that he appears more at peace with himself. Here's something you probably didn't know: He texts with Kevin Harvick crew chief Rodney Childers as Childers has a Toyota connection with Busch from his days with Michael Waltrip Racing.

"We actually talked on Monday and he said if he was going to race somebody for the championship he wanted it be me and my team," Childers said. "I think he knows that we have one of the best teams in the garage and if you've beat us, you've done your job."

He did Sunday. He led Harvick for the final 150 laps of the 267-lap race and beat Harvick -- the driver who boasted that his plan prior to the Chase was to pound Joe Gibbs Racing into the ground -- to the finish line by 1.552 seconds. The other championship contenders barely threatened, with Gordon finishing sixth and Martin Truex Jr. placing 12th.

Busch never beat himself, which some might have expected but those who have watched Busch all season knew likely wouldn't happen.

"He just seemed to have matured a ton since the accident, the way he handles himself, the way he races people. If you're faster than he is, he'll pull over," Hendrick Motorsports owner Rick Hendrick said. "I'm really happy for him. He deserves it. ... He's going to win a lot of championships.

"We'll have to see him for a long time."

The relaxed Busch brought up himself that the victory Sunday marked his first Chase win except for one in a Chase for which he didn't qualify. "Stop asking," he said with a laugh.

Maybe this was just Busch's destiny. Get this: If Joey Logano doesn't turn Matt Kenseth at Kansas Speedway in early October, Busch likely doesn't advance to the third round of the Chase as Kenseth would have earned a spot with the win and Busch would have missed the cut by one spot in the standings.

That destiny came from growing up in a racing family, and he joined brother Kurt Busch as a series champion, only the second set of brothers ( Bobby Labonte and Terry Labonte) to win a title. Kyle Busch's championship also marked the first Cup crown for Toyota.

That family upbringing also might have contributed to that feeling of always having to race for his job. He said Sunday his family money got him to the second level of the racing ladder before he had to earn rides with talent.

"I have driven somebody else's car since I was 16 years old," Busch said. "It's pretty amazing that I've been able to make those ways through the racing ranks and here to today."

The scary part? This championship should relax Busch even more; it should make him feel less the need to drive over his incredible talent and knock a wall down. It should give him confidence that he can pick and choose his battles. It's apparent he already has confidence in his no-longer-rookie Cup crew chief Adam Stevens.

That's why Hendrick believes he will win more championships. That's why Gordon believes Busch could match his own first-ballot Hall of Fame totals.

"This year, I saw a new Kyle Busch and one that he held back at the times when he needed to," Gordon said. "And that's important.

"If he continues on that path, to do that and the team continues to give him the equipment they gave him, then ... once you believe in yourself and you get confidence and you know what it takes to do it and you're not second guessing what you're doing and you pull it off, watch out, you can go on a tear."