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NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
CUP: Busch Forges Ahead
Kurt Busch is fifth in points, 91 back of Mark Martin...
Tom Jensen  |  Posted October 06, 2009   Charlotte, NC
Kurt Busch finished 11th in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Price Chopper 400 last week, race No. 3 of 10 in the Chase. (Photo: Getty Images)

You’ll forgive Kurt Busch if he’s having abandonment issues these days.

Busch, the 2004 NASCAR Sprint Cup champion, heads into Sunday’s Pepsi 500 at Auto Club Speedway fifth in the standings, 91 points behind leader Mark Martin. If he simply holds onto that spot, it will be Busch’s best points finish in his four seasons driving for Roger Penske.

Still, Busch is in a somewhat awkward situation not of his own making. Crew chief Pat Tryson is leaving the team for Michael Waltrip Racing next year and is only allowed into the Penske shops one day a week now. Richard Petty Motorsports is switching from Dodge to Ford next year, leaving Penske as the only Dodge Sprint Cup team in 2010. And on Monday, Dodge CEO Mike Accavitti, a champion of NASCAR racing for his brand, abruptly resigned.

Individually, none of those three things is huge, but collectively they raise questions about Busch’s title chances and Dodge’s future in NASCAR. And with three races down in the Chase for the Sprint Cup, unanswered questions are not a good thing.

For that matter, neither is having two Hendrick Motorsports teams, one squad that used Hendrick chassis and engines, and Juan Pablo Montoya ahead of Busch in points. That said, Busch has had a solid Chase so far, one he said reminds him of the first one in 2004, where he won the championship by 8 points over Jimmie Johnson and 16 over Jeff Gordon.

“Well, I feel like we're off to a very similar start,” Busch said of the 2004 and ’09 playoff rounds. “Except that we didn't win at New Hampshire and bumped ourselves up to the first two or three spots in points. We find ourselves fifth with three very good runs. The sixth, fifth and 11th (place finishes), if you add those together and divide them by three, that puts us around seven and a half for our average finish. We find ourselves fifth in points.”

Busch knows that although he’s in the top half of the Chase field, he’s not run well enough to win a championship so far. If he is to win a second title, he needs to finish higher, starting with Saturday night’s race in Southern California.

“The game seems to have picked up a little bit,” said Busch. “You have to run better than a seventh-place average finish if you want to find yourself in contention. So we're going to have to bump this up and try to get our Miller Lite Dodge in victory lane in the next upcoming weeks to see what we can do to balance out the strong start from everybody else.”

And from here, the pressure’s only going to get worse.


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