NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
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CUP: Finch, Busch Launch A New Season
Former champion Kurt Busch looks to add to Phoenix Racing’s win total…
Mike Hembree  |  Posted January 05, 2012   Charlotte, NC
Kurt Busch stands by during last month's Champion's Week activities in Las Vegas. (Photo: Getty Images)
Team owner James Finch has exactly one Sprint Cup victory. And it came in the most unlikely way imaginable.

Brad Keselowski, who drove in five races for Finch’s Phoenix Racing team in 2009, scored at Talladega Superspeedway in April of that year, shoving Carl Edwards out of the lead (and into the air) at the last second in a spectacular finish.

In the frantic minutes following the win (a period complicated by spectator injuries caused by Edwards’ flying car), it took a while for one big part of the reality to settle in – Finch, a wanderer of NASCAR pit roads for years, had finally hit victory lane. Reminded of that after the checkered flag, Dale Earnhardt Jr. said, “Hey, that’s right! Finch won a race!”

For Finch, it was a sensational – though isolated – moment. Since he started entering a few Cup races in the 1990 season (with driver Jeff Purvis), Finch’s team has had only two other top-five finishes – by Geoffrey Bodine in 2002 and Mike Wallace in 2007.

This year, he steps into uncharted territory – with a driver of proven championship quality, one with 24 Sprint Cup victories, including at least one for the past 10 seasons. In Kurt Busch, Finch for the first time has a full-time driver who has proven he can push the button.

Unfortunately, Busch also has proven he sometimes can push the wrong buttons, with character issues following him on his way out of previous Cup rides with team owners Jack Roush and Roger Penske.

What should be expected from this pair in 2012?

It’s not outrageous to think Busch could win a restrictor plate race. The team’s Chevrolets are powered by Hendrick engines, and plate-track rules – even though in a state of flux – are such that teams outside the top group still can threaten. A win on a plate track, however, would be the first of Busch’s career.

Finch, a Florida businessman who likes winning a party as much as winning a race, is one of the few remaining “characters” in the Sprint Cup garage. A string of noteworthy drivers have taken a temporary seat in his cars over the years in part because they enjoy hanging out with him and being around his fun-loving team.

For Busch, the year will be about much more than that. Because of his past, he’ll be under the gun to show what he can do in a situation that doesn’t hold as much promise as his previous partnerships.

It should be an interesting year.

Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEED.com and has been covering motorsports for 29 years. He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.
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