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As I watched Kurt Busch cross the finish line first last weekend, all I could think about was one thing, wouldn’t it be sweet payback if he won the championship?
Busch of course left Roush Racing at the end of 2005, just a year after winning the championship, under very bad circumstances. Remember that traffic citation out in Phoenix? Needless to say there is a lot of animosity between Jack Roush and Busch. And that has carried on through the years.
Periodically, Roush likes to needle the driver. This season Roush took the shot while praising crew chief Jimmy Fennig.
“Jimmy is a consummate stock-car racer. Heck, he even won a championship with Kurt Busch. He can do anything.”
Ouch!
Despite the critiques from his former owner Busch sits tied for third with Tony Stewart, right in the thick of Chase contention. It’s got to feel good for Busch to finally have his move to Penske paying off – even if it took a few years.
Steve Addington is the other piece to the payback puzzle. He joined forces with Busch at the beginning of last season after being released from Joe Gibbs Racing. He had been with the younger Kyle Busch for several seasons at Gibbs – but things soured.
At the time of his firing, Addington said he was surprised about getting let go.
“Do I agree with it? No… But it is what it is, and I felt like we had a good run.”
Busch said they were either feast or famine that year and all involved chalked up the release to performance issues. Who wouldn’t have been angry about a four win season? Kyle’s only been slightly more consistent since Dave Rogers took over, but that’s neither here nor there.
Addington and Busch are, in some ways, the ultimate castoffs. Both left or were forced out of organizations with which they were having a lot of success. And together they have the chance to show their immediate past employers what they missed out on.
While there is still a lot of season to go, this is definitely an interesting story to keep an eye on.
Among the milestones NASCAR is approaching this year is one that may not be on your radar – 26-year-old Kyle Busch is just one win away from matching his 32-year-old brother’s win record.
The two brothers had equally meteoric rises through the NASCAR ranks, beginning at Roush Racing. Kurt in 2000 and Kyle, at age 16, in 2001. When NASCAR started requiring drivers to be 18 or older, a direct result of Kyle’s six-race stretch in a Roush truck, he stepped away from NASCAR. He returned full-time in the Nationwide Series in 2004 with Hendrick Motorsports.
Kyle made his Cup debut in 2005 and won two races before the season was over. Meanwhile Kurt was already an 11-time Cup winner and the reigning champion. Kurt’s falling out with Jack Roush and his unceremonious exit from the team following a reckless driving charge in Maricopa County, Arizona was the talk of the end of 2005. He took over Rusty Wallace’s famous #2 Miller Light Dodge at Penske Racing the following season.
Kyle experienced a similar falling out with Rick Hendrick in 2007 – he took over the #18 Interstate Batteries Toyota from J.J. Yeley the following season.
Even with the bumps in the road, the two Busch boys have racked up pretty impressive stats. Collectively, since 2000 in the Cup Series, they have 45 wins, 162 top-fives, 281 top-10s, 22 poles and one championship in 628 starts.
Statistically, Kyle has the edge on his brother. He has the better average start at 15.1 (Kurt’s is 15.7) and the better average finish at 15.5 (Kurt’s is 16.8). Kyle also averages wins more frequently than his brother – every 11 races compared to every 16.7 races for Kurt.
Interestingly though in the six full seasons the two have raced together, both average the same points finish of 11th and both brothers have missed the Chase just twice in their careers (Kurt in 2006 and 2008; Kyle in 2005 and 2009).
The two have had very similar paths up to this point and have undoubtedly found success on their own terms – both with two different organizations. In the coming weeks and months, with the Penske teams on the upswing, it’ll be interesting to see if Kurt is able to maintain his Cup Series win lead over Kyle. If history is any guide though, it’s only a matter of time before baby brother overtakes him.
Kurt Busch Wins Race at California
Image courtsey of NASCAR Media
Well it was a day of paybacks as Tony Stewart and Brian Vickers exchanged being the dumper and dumpee (if that is even a word). There were some banging and bashing going on and that was only the first part of the race.
It isn’t every week that the best car wins but Kurt Busch‘s car was dialed in right today. Through many restarts his car took off and opened up a lead every time. His car was very dominant and in front most of the race. It isn’t a bad spot to be in when the” Boys are having at it” behind you.
The top 10 finishers in order were, Kurt Busch, Jeff Gordon, Carl Edwards, Clint Bowyer, Marcos Ambrose, Joey Logano, Jimmie Johnson, Martin Truex jr, Kevin Harvick and Brad Keselowski.
The amazing part of the drivers in the top ten were there was some really damaged race cars. Kevin Harvick’s car was banged up all over the place and I am sure he is happy with a top 10.
Juan Pablo Montoya seemed to be running into everyone once again on the road course. I don’t think the other drivers like his aggressiveness. Juan isn’t going to change his driving style any time soon though.
Dale Earnhardt Jr had a bad day, he was involved in someone else’s mess and his car was junk after that. They later pulled into the garage after his car caught fire from a hole in the engine somewhere. Here is his interview after the race.
DALE EARNHARDT, JR., NO. 88 AMP ENERGY/NATIONAL GUARD CHEVROLET, INVOLVED IN MULTI-CAR INCIDENT IN TURN 11 ON LAP 38, RETIRED FROM RACE AS A RESULT OF DAMAGE TO RADIATOR RESULTING IN ENGINE FAILURE: WHAT HAPPENED OUT THERE? “We had made the car better during that first stop. They had a big ole mess getting into (turn) 11 and we jumped in there and got part of it and banged up the nose a little bit. It knocked a hole in the radiator and it ended up hurting the engine a little bit so I think the engine is done. It has a hole in the side of it so that usually isn’t good. I ran it a couple of laps and the temp was fine on the water so we thought maybe it was just a pinhole in the radiator and maybe we could just run around 10 or 20 laps and just fill it back up with qualifying cycle machine that we use to push water through the motors on qualifying day. But, I guess the motor didn’t like it and it knocked the side out the motor, so it’s done.”
WHAT WAS ISSUE? “We just got in a little bit of a bang up there in turn 11 with a bunch of guys and knocked a hole in the radiator and drained all the water out of it and hurt the engine. The engine is ruined so we won’t be able to get back out there. We had made the car better. It was a really rough race but it was fun though. It just sucks to be out this early.”
WHAT WAS IT LIKE OUT THERE, WAS THERE A LOT OF BEATIN’ AND BANGIN’ OUT THERE? “I was seein’ beatin’ and bangin’ but that is just the way the road courses are. This place…it is the way these races here have been for awhile. You know what you sign up for when you show up on Friday. You kinda want to get up in the middle of it ya know. You want to get in the middle of it and have fun. Everybody is bangin’ around but your car can’t survive it. They just spun out in front of me in (turn) 11 and I just kinda ran into somebody with the front of my car. But the beatin’ and the bangin’ was kinda fun.”
YOU SAID ON FRIDAY YOU WANTED TO MAKE THIS YOUR FAVORITE TRACK EVENTUALLY HAVE YOU LEARNED TO LIKE IT ANY BETTER? “I’m not a big fan of the place, but, maybe one of these days. We were havin’ a pretty good time of it out there. We weren’t the worst car. There are some guys out there that have some real good speed. It should be interesting how this race plays out.”
ARE YOU KIND OF GLAD TO GET OUT OF THIS STRETCH OF RACES AND HEAD TO DAYTONA AND A FEW PLACES YOU LIKE? “I’m not looking forward to going to Daytona, not with the way the drafting is there. But, we’ll just have to see if we can get lucky out of there. What is after Daytona? Will be glad to go there. New Hampshire? I love that place. (LAUGHS).”
It was nice to see Dale Jr with a smile on his face after his day. Here are some other questions and answers and of course everyone wants to know what Tony had to say.
TONY STEWART, NO. 14 OFFICE DEPOT/OLD SPICE CHEVROLET, FINISHED 39TH AFTER TWO-CAR INCIDENT ON LAP 87 THAT SENT HIM TO THE GARAGE FOR REPAIRS: WHAT HAPPENED? “I dumped him earlier for blocking and he got me back later on. If they block, they are going to get dumped. It is real simple. I mean I don’t blame him, I don’t blame him for dumping us back. But, I don’t race guys that way, I never have. If guys want to block then they are going to wrecked every time. Until NASCAR makes a rule against it, I am going to dump them every time for it. He did what he had to do, I don’t blame him, there is nothing wrong with it.”
WAS THAT ANYTHING OTHER THAN FLAT PAYBACK? “I probably had it coming because I dumped him earlier but I dumped him because he was blocking. If anybody wants to block all year that’s what I’m going to keep doing so they can handle it however they want. It was payback, but I dumped him first and I dumped him because he was blocking. I’ve been complaining about the way guys have been racing all year. I like Brian, I’m not holding it against him at all. I don’t care if it was Ryan Newman I would have dumped him too. If they want to block that’s what is going to happen to them every time for the rest of my career.”
IS THE LACK OF RESPECT MORE PREVELANT THAN EVER? “I don’t know if its lack of respect or guys just pushing the envelope and not working with each other. There wasn’t any reason at the point of the race where he started blocking in the first place. It didn’t make sense to do it and I’m not going to tolerate it. I don’t race guys that way and I’m not going to let anybody race me that way. So if they block they get dumped. Plain and simple.”.
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO 48 LOWE’S/JIMMIE JOHNSON FOUNDATION CHEVROLET, FINISHED 7TH: HARD-FOUGHT SEVENTH PLACE FINISH: “Yes, it was. The strategy worked against us, but we still had a decent car and could get up there and get a top-10. So, we’ll take it.”
KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 29 RHEEM TANKLESS CHEVROLET, FINISHED 9TH: ON HIS ROLLER COASTER OF A DAY: “It was all strategy. I mean, we got up to about 14th or 15th there and just kind of stalled. The car was really loose. Then we got in a little wreck and tore it up even worse. As the run would go on, we would just get so loose. The car has a lot of damage on it. A lot of credit to these guys for getting it fixed for the strategy. It was the best ninth place finish I can ever remember.”
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA, NO. 42 COTTONELLE CHEVROLET, FINISHED 22ND AFTER LATE-RACE CONTACT RELEGATED HIM DEEP IN THE FIELD: YOU CAME IN FOR TIRES LATE AND YOU GAVE UP A LOT OF TRACK POSITION DOING THAT, DROVE AGGRESSIVE HAD CONTACT WITH THE NO. 2 AND NO. 4, WERE THE TIRES THE RIGHT CALL? “Yeah, tires were the right call. The No. 4 was the first car, I got beside him and he knocked me a couple of times and they just don’t give me any room so it was hard. The No. 2, I got on his bumper moved him a little bit, got beside him and passed him and he just plain and simple wrecked us. It’s hard when people don’t know how to race on road courses and think they do. It’s okay. We had fun, we have a good car. This Cottonelle Chevy was amazing today. It’s nice to run good here.”
ARE YOU GOING TO TALK TO THE NO. 2? “Ask him, he’s the one that wrecked me. We through the corner and I just got on his bumper a little bit and moved him a little. Got a good run and I guess he didn’t like it. I mean, it is just hard to run with people who have never run well on road courses or have no experience at it. It cost us a ton of points today. But no, you have to talk to smart people.”
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DUPONT CHEVROLET, FINISHED 2ND: OUTSIDE THE TOP 20 AT ONE POINT THE CAR WAS PLOWING, SIDEWAYS LOOSE WAS THIS A STATEMENT KIND OF DAY WHEN THE TEAM SALVAGED THEIR DAY? “It certainly was. It was as much a statement to us as anything else. You know a great effort by this DuPont Chevrolet team and Alan and everybody. It was a struggle. I’ve got to tell you we really missed the set up at the beginning of this race. I don’t know jsut the adjustments we made were that good or the track position or the track changing at the end. It looked like a lot of guys were really, really struggling with grip there at the end and our car was actually pretty good. We were fast and I think we were faster than the leaders. That felt awesome to start there with old tires and be able to work through traffic all the way up to second, man that was amazing.”
YOU’VE GOT JEFF GORVETTE ON THE CAR AND I GUESS KURT BUSCH MUST HAVE BEEN LIGHTNING MCQUEEN TODAY “I guess so. I tell you what, Jeff Gorvette came on there at the end and you know what, I’ve just got to say thanks to this team. I know we do that all the time. But if you guys were watching that No. 24 car, you know it was a struggle today. We were way in the back and not moving forward. We just missed the set-up at the beginning of this race. Alan and all the guys came together and made some good adjustments and that was a great call there at the end to stay out. We didn’t know. I thought really, even there at the end, that we were probably going to get beat up by some of the guys on newer tires. But the car just really stayed good there and we were able to even beat a lot of the guys in front of us and run them down. So that was a lot of fun. I was just so thankful the car finally came together there at the end. We were really, really struggling. So it was a great team effort.”
HOW DO YOU KEEP YOUR PATIENCE WHEN YOU’RE DEALING WITH A ROUGH BEGINNING OF THE RACE? “It was hard. You’ve got to ride it out. You’ve got to keep your nose clean and stay out of trouble. There were a lot of guys doing some silly things that were wrecking and causing themselves a whole race instead of just trying to survive. When the car is like that you kind of have to give up the spots and not fight the guys off too much, which is just the toughest thing to do. You want to race. But we just didn’t have what it took there to do that and so we just were patient and that’s part of being old. I’m going to be 40 this year and I’m more patient nowadays than I used to be. So I just appreciate this team hanging in there. It was not fun for any of us to see that but boy to hang in there and to come back and fight for second there at the end with Carl (Edwards) and to get a second place out of this day, wow. It was a great effort by this DuPont Chevrolet team.”
CLINT BOWYER, NO. 33 CHEERIOS/HAMBURGER HELPER CHEVROLET, FINISHED 4TH: ON HIS RACE: “Well, we didn’t really weather the storm but it was a lot of fun. Thank you guys for coming out here and enjoying this place. It is a hell of a place race. It was a lot of fun. It is always fun to race in front of a great crowd like this. Our Cheerios/Hamburger Helper Chevrolet was pretty good all weekend long. It was about a second to fifth place car is where we were all weekend long. So, a good finish in fourth.”
JEFF BURTON, NO. 31 CATERPILLAR CHEVROLET, FINISHED 21ST: ON HIS RACE: “We never were able to get ahold of the handling on the Cat Chevy today. Todd (Berrier, crew chief) made a number of changes to the setup and we would run well for a couple of laps but then rear grip would just disappear again.”
NASCAR News and Notes:
Kurt Busch won the 23rd Annual Toyota/Save Mart 350, his 23rd victory in 380 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races. He ties Ricky Rudd for 23rd on all-time victory list. This is his first victory and ninth top-10 finish in 2011. His last win was May 30, 2010 in the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. He breaks a 38-race winless streak.
This is his first victory and fourth top-10 finish in 11 races at Infineon Raceway. This is his first road race victory. His best previous road race finish was second last year at Watkins Glen International. His previous best Infineon finish was third in 2005. Jeff Gordon (second) posted his 15th top-10 finish in 19 races at Infineon Raceway. It is his sixth top-10 finish in 2011. Carl Edwards (third) posted his third top-10 finish in seven races at Infineon Raceway.
Andy Lally (35th) was the highest finishing rookie. Carl Edwards leads the point standings by 25 points over Kevin Harvick.
Kurt Busch Wins Race at California is a post from: Awesome Race Fans
Awesome Race Fans - By Awesome Race Fans for Awesome Race Fans
fleet·ing ex·ple·tive a non-scripted verbal profanity or obscenity expressed and broadcast during a live television broadcast or radio broadcast. The term appears primarily in discussions of United States broadcasting law.
Yep, he did. If you watched the Coca-Cola 600 all the way through Sunday night, you were treated to a little fleeting expletive courtesy of Chad Knaus. As Jimmie Johnson’s engine expired with about five to go the Fox production crew cut to the team’s radio traffic. In that brief moment Knaus is clearly heard saying, “You’ve got to be f$*#ing kidding me.” (Fair warning - video here).
Fox’s Mike Joy promptly apologized for the profanity. But unfortunately, what was done, was done.
This isn’t the first time this season (not even this month) we’ve talked about profanities and the sanctity of radio chatter. Interestingly enough, Kurt Busch (the topic of our first radio traffic post of the season) took time during his media availability on Thursday to criticize the way the media has handled language on the radio. He said:
“I always laugh and sit there and listen to you guys contradict yourselves, saying you want us to be more colorful,” [Busch] said. “But also what you want to do to a driver is just thrash him when he shows personality. That’s what I’m going through with this radio.”
No doubt, interesting bookends to the weekend.
Obviously this wasn’t a moment that should have found its way to network television. That said, it was an understandable ‘fleeting expletive’ given the situation – a frustrating end to what had been a pretty good day. I can’t say I would have reacted much differently.
One has to wonder though the logic behind putting, what I assume was live radio traffic on the air. Fox, as far as I know, isn’t using any kind of a delay, despite several past incidents. The potential for getting burned is quite large.
We’ll see Tuesday if NASCAR does anything about this incident, but it would be very unfortunate if Knaus does get fined. Other than not using the radio to vent frustration, there wasn’t anything he could do about this being broadcast to millions of people. Perhaps we’ve come to a place where that should be the expectation any time the radio is keyed.
Every time this becomes an issue, I find it unfortunate for the fans who enjoy listening to the radio. The access is truly one of the great things in NASCAR and these moments can have a chilling effect on what does and does not get said over open channels (i.e. emotion). We’ll see if there’s any fallout.
Weekend Fun Fact
Did anyone else notice in both the Indy 500 and the Coke 600 this weekend both National Guard sponsored cars lost the race by literally hundreds of feet on the last lap? Strange coincidence.
Drivers should be professional enough to police themselves and refrain from using such offensive language, even in the heat of battle. They should be conscious of the fact that fans and others are listening and choose their words and rants more carefully.
What!?
Yearly we end up in this ridiculous debate about the language used over team radios. Someone, somewhere inevitably gets offended by an f-bomb or a tirade and some in the media pick it up as a cause célèbre.
In fact, TC wrote about it two years ago – in that case it was Kurt Busch getting into it with Roger Penske on the radio. As TC said at the time, “who cares.”
The debate ramped up this week after tirades from Martin Truex Jr. and you guessed it, Kurt Busch. Put together a lot of f-words and a lot of criticism of equipment and crews and you get the general idea about what was said.
The openness of crew communications in NASCAR makes it a great resource for fans and the media. In no other sport do you get easy, real time access to privileged communications between athletes and coaches (or in our case, crew chiefs). We’re provided with insights into team strategy, the highs of victory and in some cases the frustration of defeat.
With that privilege, we have to realize that these athletes have every right to express themselves for better or worse in some venue. The adrenaline and danger associated with this sport leads to the occasional understandable outburst. Not too long ago I heard a driver tell his crew they were “ruining [his] f****** career.” He didn’t necessarily mean that, but in the heat of the moment and the heat of the battle he was letting off steam.
And while you may or may not agree with the use of language, I think it’s hard to argue that these guys shouldn’t have an outlet to express what they’re feeling in the heat of battle. Saying that they need to moderate themselves is absolutely ridiculous.
Being in the car during a race is not an interview and is not really an environment that lends itself to “choosing words more carefully.”
I don’t think NASCAR should make radio traffic private – it really is one of the great things about the sport – but I think there needs to be a realization about the nature of the communications on those channels. And lets face it, the more complaining that’s done in public about what’s said on those channels the more likely the teams are to move to, or push for closed communication channels.
So the long and short of it is, if you don’t want to be offended by bad language, don’t listen.
Coming off of a season that saw a pot hole mar the opening race and then rain and other issues combine to make for a less than stellar start, 2011 has been nothing short of a breath of fresh air in the Cup Series. And consider this, with Jimmie Johnson’s come from behind win Sunday in Talladega this season has produced seven different winners in eight different races – not a bad start to the season.
Add to that solid start four different championship points leaders and six different lead changes and you’ve got a season that hasn’t really had a stand out driver or team through the first portion.
Our current top-ten in points have had some good stats to back them up – all have at least four top-tens, and with the exception of Kurt Busch, all have at least two top-fives. Half of them have wins. All – with the exception of Kurt Busch – hold the distinction though of having at least one finish of 24th or worse. Some have finishes a lot worse.
The only guy to score repeat wins? Well so far, Kevin Harvick has a DNF at Daytona and two sub-17th place finishes on top of that. His season has so far been a bit of a roller coaster.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the only drivers to have any measure of consistency are the top-three. Carl Edwards is averaging a finish of 8.2 (with blemishes at Phoenix and Martinsville); Jimmie Johnson is averaging a finish of 8.9 with one bad run at Daytona; and Dale Earnhardt Jr., though he is winless, is channeling that classic Steve Letarte consistency, averaging a 10th place finish with just one DNF (a 24th place finish) at Daytona.
Even with the brighter spots in the top-ten, the points are still close enough for drivers to have big swings in and out. Both Kevin Harvick and Matt Kenseth jumped five spots (in opposite directions) this past weekend.
The fact is, and I think this speaks to the level of competition we have right now in the sport, there just isn’t a dominate team. Going into race nine, it gets harder to turn seven out of eight into eight out of nine, but with the way this season has gone, anything could happen.
So what do you think? Has anybody stood out to you? Who’s most likely to make an early run?
Filed under: Kurt Busch, Dodge, Penske Racing, Daytona Int'l Speedway, NASCAR
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Filed under: Denny Hamlin, Kurt Busch, Daytona Int'l Speedway, NASCAR
Filed under: Kurt Busch, Sam Hornish Jr., Penske Racing, Chase for the Sprint Cup, Sprint Cup, NASCAR