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Sprint Cup
CUP: Busch Brothers Roll Home On Downslide
Kyle and Kurt Busch remain in competitive rides but have fallen short of the brass ring…
Kyle Busch's car went up in flames after contact with Kevin Harvick during the Ford 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway. (Photo: LAT Photographic)
The last time we saw the racing Busch brothers, things weren’t going all that splendidly.
Kyle was in a rather nasty confrontation late in Sunday’s Ford 400 with championship contender Kevin Harvick, and he ultimately decided that Harvick was “two-faced,” ending his season at Homestead-Miami Speedway with an ugly moment.
Kurt, who scored the biggest moment of his NASCAR career at Homestead in 2004 (winning the Sprint Cup title), puttered around the track Sunday in extreme mediocrity, racing in the 20s most of the day before finishing a ho-hum 18th.
That run dropped Kurt from 10th to 11th in the series’ final standings, booting him, in effect, from the awards banquet stage, which is reserved for those in the top 10.
Kyle, who finished 32nd after parking (in flames) because of the Harvick incident, also dropped a spot in points – to eighth.
It wasn’t a great weekend to be a Busch.
Despite 41 Sprint Cup victories between them (and a sensational season across all three major national series by Kyle this year), the Busches have only one Cup title – and that by Kurt back in 2004, the first year of the Chase.
Kurt, of course, has been in transition since then, having left an increasingly uncomfortable situation at Roush Fenway Racing to move on to Penske Racing, where he seems to have found a happy place.
His season was up and down this year, however. After scoring a pair of wins in the first half of the season and climbing as high as fourth in points, he had a miserable closing stretch, finishing in the top 10 only once in the final eight races.
Kyle also stumbled late, with five finishes worse than 20th in the last eight races. He fell from a high of second in points near mid-season to eighth in the final accounting.
What are these guys going to have to do to put another fun championship photo on the wall at Mom and Pop Busch’s house?
For Kurt, it’s about more growth and improved consistency at Penske, where he’ll make a transition of sorts next season, moving from the No. 2 Dodge to the No. 12, swapping numbers with teammate Brad Keselowski, who won the Nationwide championship this season.
“I congratulate him and our group on what they’ve done and accomplished,” Busch said of Keselowski. “Now we need to get him in the Cup car with that same mindset where he’s just completely focused on it and he’s getting faster and faster with the more experience that he gains. It was nice to work with him and see what he thinks about certain race tracks and how he approaches things.
“Any time that you have a stronger teammate, it makes your program better. I’m really looking forward to him feeling more comfortable in his second season. That way we can definitely lean on each other harder and competing where we’re racing each other hard every week.”
Busch said his team can improve by continuing its search for different approaches.
“We’re competitive, but we need to be better,” he said. “Right now, it’s just a process of working around the clock to find different chassis designs, chassis setups and aerodynamic changes. You name it; we’re searching high and low. With us being as competitive as we were this year and winning a couple of races, I still just felt like we weren’t where we needed to be in the Chase. It’s been a tough Chase.
“Overall, just the improvements made these last few weeks give us that indication that next year could be a breakout year.”
As for Kyle, the widespread view in NASCAR garages is that he has more maturing to do before he can seriously contend for a Cup title, although he won the 2009 Nationwide championship. In six full seasons in Cup, he has finished in the top nine in points only twice – and has been no higher than fifth at the end of the season.
Ultra-competitive and a believer in frontier justice on the track, Kyle often is his worst enemy. He won three times in Cup this year and showed signs of settling into a more dependable groove, but he had run-ins with other drivers, including teammate Denny Hamlin, and remained a contentious foe.
Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEED.com and has been covering motorsports for 28 years. He has written several books on NASCAR, including "NASCAR: The Definitive History of America's Sport" and "Then Tony Said To Junior: The Best NASCAR Stories Ever Told". He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.
Kyle was in a rather nasty confrontation late in Sunday’s Ford 400 with championship contender Kevin Harvick, and he ultimately decided that Harvick was “two-faced,” ending his season at Homestead-Miami Speedway with an ugly moment.
Kurt, who scored the biggest moment of his NASCAR career at Homestead in 2004 (winning the Sprint Cup title), puttered around the track Sunday in extreme mediocrity, racing in the 20s most of the day before finishing a ho-hum 18th.
That run dropped Kurt from 10th to 11th in the series’ final standings, booting him, in effect, from the awards banquet stage, which is reserved for those in the top 10.
Kyle, who finished 32nd after parking (in flames) because of the Harvick incident, also dropped a spot in points – to eighth.
It wasn’t a great weekend to be a Busch.
Despite 41 Sprint Cup victories between them (and a sensational season across all three major national series by Kyle this year), the Busches have only one Cup title – and that by Kurt back in 2004, the first year of the Chase.
Kurt, of course, has been in transition since then, having left an increasingly uncomfortable situation at Roush Fenway Racing to move on to Penske Racing, where he seems to have found a happy place.
His season was up and down this year, however. After scoring a pair of wins in the first half of the season and climbing as high as fourth in points, he had a miserable closing stretch, finishing in the top 10 only once in the final eight races.
Kyle also stumbled late, with five finishes worse than 20th in the last eight races. He fell from a high of second in points near mid-season to eighth in the final accounting.
What are these guys going to have to do to put another fun championship photo on the wall at Mom and Pop Busch’s house?
For Kurt, it’s about more growth and improved consistency at Penske, where he’ll make a transition of sorts next season, moving from the No. 2 Dodge to the No. 12, swapping numbers with teammate Brad Keselowski, who won the Nationwide championship this season.
“I congratulate him and our group on what they’ve done and accomplished,” Busch said of Keselowski. “Now we need to get him in the Cup car with that same mindset where he’s just completely focused on it and he’s getting faster and faster with the more experience that he gains. It was nice to work with him and see what he thinks about certain race tracks and how he approaches things.
“Any time that you have a stronger teammate, it makes your program better. I’m really looking forward to him feeling more comfortable in his second season. That way we can definitely lean on each other harder and competing where we’re racing each other hard every week.”
Busch said his team can improve by continuing its search for different approaches.
“We’re competitive, but we need to be better,” he said. “Right now, it’s just a process of working around the clock to find different chassis designs, chassis setups and aerodynamic changes. You name it; we’re searching high and low. With us being as competitive as we were this year and winning a couple of races, I still just felt like we weren’t where we needed to be in the Chase. It’s been a tough Chase.
“Overall, just the improvements made these last few weeks give us that indication that next year could be a breakout year.”
As for Kyle, the widespread view in NASCAR garages is that he has more maturing to do before he can seriously contend for a Cup title, although he won the 2009 Nationwide championship. In six full seasons in Cup, he has finished in the top nine in points only twice – and has been no higher than fifth at the end of the season.
Ultra-competitive and a believer in frontier justice on the track, Kyle often is his worst enemy. He won three times in Cup this year and showed signs of settling into a more dependable groove, but he had run-ins with other drivers, including teammate Denny Hamlin, and remained a contentious foe.
Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEED.com and has been covering motorsports for 28 years. He has written several books on NASCAR, including "NASCAR: The Definitive History of America's Sport" and "Then Tony Said To Junior: The Best NASCAR Stories Ever Told". He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.
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