ESPN Sprint Cup

Every Sunday this season, we have settled into our recliners to watch NASCAR's hottest new rivalry in the Sprint Cup Series: Kyle vs. Carl.

Every Saturday this season, we have settled into our recliners to watch NASCAR's other hottest new rivalry in the Nationwide Series …

Kyle vs. Carl?

Somewhat lost in the heat of their battle for the top spot in the Chase has been the fact that both Busch and Edwards are putting up historic seasons in two different NASCAR series simultaneously. They have a chance to not only finish 1-2 in Cup Series points; they may finish 1-2 in wins in both of NASCAR's top two series.

Which brings us to this question: In six decades of NASCAR racing, who has posted the greatest individual cross-series seasons ever? Those insatiable seasons when kicking butt in only one car per weekend just wasn't enough, when racers decided to go Bo Jackson/Deion Sanders and did a little big league cross-training.

You want to know, do you?

Good thing, because we've already looked it up.

10. 1956 -- Curtis Turner
Cup:1 win, 5 top-10s, 14 starts
Convertible Series:22 wins, 28 top-5s, 42 starts, 2nd in points
Yes, you read that right: Convertible Series.

From 1956 to 1959, NASCAR sanctioned races with cars that had no roof (but did have a roll cage). Like today's Buschwackers (or whatever we call them now), the biggest stars in NASCAR's Grand National (now Cup) Series liked to swoop down and race against the young up-and-comers.

In '56, Turner won only one Cup race, but it was a doozy: the Southern 500 at Darlington. He then won nine of the final 11 convertible races of the season. Not bad, if you like winning.

9. 1997 -- Mark Martin
Cup:4 wins, 24 top-10s, 3rd in points
Busch:6 wins, 12 top-10s, 15 starts
IROC:2 wins, Series Champion
You could pretty much take any Mark Martin season between 1989 and 2000 and stick it on this list, because he was a perennial contender for the Cup title and also in the midst of compiling the record for all-time Busch Series victories. But we chose '97 because that year Mr. Consistency also hammered down his third IROC championship, outlasting then-open-wheel racer Robby Gordon.

We nearly went with '96, when Mark won the IROC title, six Busch races, and a Truck Series event … but that calendar was undone by a winless Cup campaign.

8. 1996 -- Terry Labonte
Cup:2 wins, 24 top-10s, Series champion
Busch:3 wins, 16 top-10s, 18 starts
IROC:4th in points, 2 top-5s in 4 races
Texas Terry put on his typically quiet show in '96, outpunching 10-race winner Jeff Gordon to take his second Cup crown. He ran only 18 Busch races, but won three, including his third straight Watkins Glen event, which Randy LaJoie nicknamed "The Terry Labonte Invitational." The previous season was the inaugural year of the Truck Series, where the Ice Man scored one win in three tries.

7. 1959 -- Lee Petty

Cup:11 wins, 35 top-10s, 42 starts, Series championship
Convertibles: 1 win, 2 top-10s, 4 starts
The original King of Randleman, N.C., began the '59 season with a thrilling photo-finish victory in the inaugural Daytona 500 and then ran away with his third NASCAR Grand National championship.

Lee also slummed in the Convertibles, earning a win in Greenville, S.C., only 13 days after son Richard had earned his first victory down the road in Columbia.

6. 2007 -- Carl Edwards
Cup:3 wins, 15 top-10s, 9th in points
Busch: 4 wins, 21 top-10s, Series champion
Trucks:1 top-5, 1 pole, 2 starts
If Edwards had been able to find any consistency on the Cup side, we may very well have finally had the elusive Cup-Busch double championship, but three wins scattered over a slew of double-digit finishes proved too much to overcome. Still, his Busch title was one of the biggest routs in NASCAR history.

5. 1986 -- Dale Earnhardt

Cup:5 wins, 23 top-10s, Series champion
Busch:5 wins, 9 top-5s, 11 starts
1986 marked the year Earnhardt and Richard Childress finally hit their stride together. After nearly winning the Daytona 500, the 3 car started the season with a dozen top-10s in the first 14 races and never looked back. In the 11 Busch races that the Intimidator won in his self-owned ride, he won five times (including Daytona), finished second three times, and third once.

4. 1985 -- Darrell Waltrip
Cup:3 wins, 21 top-10s, Series champion
Busch:3 wins, 6 top-5s, 8 starts
IROC:1 win, 3 starts, 2nd in points
DW certainly had bigger win numbers during his years driving for Junior Johnson, but in '85 he won his third Cup in five years by spoiling Awesome Bill Elliott's Winston Million season. Like Earnhardt, Waltrip liked to field his own cars in the Busch Series, where he won three times and posted a tidy average finish of fifth over eight races. He also won the IROC season opener at Daytona, but lost the championship in a tiebreaker to Harry Gant.

3. 2006 -- Kevin Harvick
Cup:5 wins, 20 top-10s, 5th in points
Busch: 9 wins, 32 top-10s, Series champion
Happy seems to be happier when he's racing all the time, so in 2006 he ran the full schedule in both of NASCAR's top series thanks to a confusing series of rental cars, planes and choppers that crisscrossed the nation all summer long.

The result was the biggest beatdown in NASCAR points history -- an 824-point stomping of Edwards in the Busch series -- and the best season of Harvick's Cup career … so far.

2. 2001 -- Kevin Harvick

Cup:2 wins, 16 top-10s, 9th in points, Rookie of the Year
Busch:5 wins, 24 top-10s, Series champion
Trucks:1 start, finished 2nd at Richmond
As impressive as Harvick was in '06, what he did five years earlier is still one of the greatest stories in stock car racing history. The 25-year-old handpicked protégé of Richard Childress had settled into his new life as a Busch Series contender when tragedy shoved him into Dale Earnhardt's Chevy one race into the 2001 Cup season.

In just his third race, Harvick was in Victory Lane at Atlanta and then added a second Cup win at Chicago later that summer. Meanwhile, he fulfilled that promise in Busch, edging defending champ Jeff Green for the title.

"We asked for the impossible from Kevin that year," Childress admits now. "And he handed the impossible right back to us."

1. 2008 -- Kyle Busch
Cup:8 wins, 15 top-10s, 25 starts, 1st in points
Nationwide:7 wins, 13 top-5s, 23 (of 27) starts, 7th in points
Trucks:3 wins, 9 top-10s, 11 (of 16) starts
No, the season isn't over. No, he hasn't won a championship yet. Yes, we know he's lost ground to Edwards and Jimmie Johnson in recent weeks.

But consider this -- Shrub has already won 18 races and six poles, and has a chance to lead all three of NASCAR's big three national series in wins. All three!

His past two months -- three Cup wins, three Nationwide wins, and one Truck win -- have been better than most great seasons. And if he manages to add a championship -- any championship -- at the end of the year, then his perch at the top of this list is a no-brainer.

Honorable mentions: Clint Bowyer '07 (3rd in Cup points, 2 Nationwide wins), Robby Gordon '03 (2 Cup wins, front-row start in Indy 500).

Ryan McGee, a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine, is the author of "ESPN Ultimate NASCAR: 100 Defining Moments in Stock Car Racing History." He can be reached at mcgeespn@yahoo.com.