NASCAR

Sprint Cup

CUP: Can Kurt Busch Heat Up Hot ‘Lanta?

Kurt Busch has won the last two spring Sprint Cup races at Atlanta Motor Speedway...

Tom Jensen | Posted September 02, 2010 Charlotte, NC

Kurt Busch is currently locked into the NASCAR Chase for the Sprint Cup. (Photo: Getty Images)

The days and weeks leading up to the Chase for the Sprint Cup are always a treacherous time to try and draw hard and fast conclusions about who’s likely championship ready and who isn’t.

You never know which teams are experimenting with new parts and setups for the championship run and who’s sort of playing possum, waiting for money time to show their real hands.

That’s especially true this season, when it seems as if the driver who’s red hot one month flames out completely the next.

That said, it’s certainly safe to say that one of this year’s true championship hopefuls, Kurt Busch, is looking for a strong finish in Sunday night’s Emory Healthcare 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

After finishing fourth overall and best of the non-Hendrick Motorsports cars in last year’s title hunt, Busch certainly has had an interesting, and somewhat erratic, season in 2010.

In the first half of NASCAR’s 26-race regular season, Busch enjoyed considerable success, with a dominant victory in the March race at AMS, and then sweeping the Sprint All-Star Race and the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway in May.

In the last six races, though, Busch has slumped mightily, falling from fourth to 10th in the Cup points standings. The bad news began with a 26th-place finish at Chicagoland Speedway, followed by a 10th in the Brickyard 400 and a 33rd at Pocono. Busch had a strong runner-up finish on the Watkins Glen road course, but then lost an engine at Michigan and finished 40th and had a disappointing ninth-place finish at Bristol, a place he use to rule at.

The good news for Busch is that he comes into AMS having won two of the last three races here. The bad news is that the two he won were the spring races in 2009 and ’10, both of which were run in the daytime. In the Labor Day weekend night event a year ago here, Busch had a DNF, crashing out of the race and finishing 38th.

“We're definitely coming back into Atlanta hoping to enjoy the level of success we have in recent races there,” said Busch, who is safely in the Chase for the Sprint Cup, with a 253-point lead over 13th-place Jamie McMurray. “But, when you look at the record, you'll see that we have had our good runs during the day races there and last year's first night race definitely didn't turn out like we hoped.”

Given the bi-polar nature of Busch’s results at AMS, his expectations are somewhat tempered for this weekend.

“We're coming in with a realistic level of optimism,” said Busch. “We expect to do well and look to be really competitive this weekend, but we know it will be a challenge. Winning the two spring races in a row at Atlanta definitely puts a little more confidence into our step coming back in there. But, we've seen week in and week out this season just how much things can change from the first race to the second. We understand the challenge that we're up against.”

Kurt Busch, driver of the #2 Miller Lite/Vortex Dodge, looks at lap times in the garage during practice. (Photo: Getty Images)

At this juncture, it’s all about winning races.

Once the field is set for the Chase in two weeks, each of the 12 drivers will have his point total reset to 5,000 plus 10 bonus points for each race victory in a points-paying event. Right now, Denny Hamlin and Jimmie Johnson have 50 bonus points each; Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch have 30 each; Kurt Busch has 20 (his All-Star race victory doesn’t count towards Chase bonus points).

“While we know we can lock up a spot in the Chase there in Atlanta on Sunday night with a good finish, we still have to be in the mode of doing what it takes to win and bank us some more bonus points to help with our seating when the Chase kicks in,” said Busch.

“The bottom line is that we are coming in there looking for that extra oomph that will help us big-picture-wise and give us additional momentum as we head into the Chase.”

Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief of SPEED.com, Senior NASCAR Editor at RACER and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. You can follow him online at twitter.com/tomjensen100 and e-mail him at Jensen is the author of “Cheating: The Bad Things Good NASCAR Nextel Cup Racers Do In Pursuit of Speed,” and has appeared on numerous television and radio shows. Jensen is the past President of the National Motorsports Press Association and an NMPA Writer of the Year.

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