CUP: Kurt Busch Comfortable At Phoenix Racing

Sprint Cup

CUP: Kurt Busch Comfortable At Phoenix Racing

Kurt Busch says he can have fun without winning...

Bob Pockrass | http://www.scenedaily.com | Posted January 13, 2012 Daytona Beach, FL

Kurt Busch was one of the biggest losers of the off-season. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

Kurt Busch got to Daytona International Speedway Thursday morning, and his team was still thrashing on his Phoenix Racing car a bit.

It reminded him of his NASCAR Southwest tour days, when the car would be rushed onto the team hauler and the team would have to install brake ducts and other odds and ends once it arrived at the track.

His new team couldn’t get the seat he wanted installed for Daytona because it ran out of time to make the brackets.

A year ago at Penske Racing, that would have been unacceptable.

Now a year later at Phoenix Racing, Busch calls it a “perfect” scenario. He said there’s no frustration working with a small team scrambling to get ready for the season.

“When you have 400 employees, you can’t be in that position,” Busch said Friday at Daytona. “When you have 18, it’s an intimate group. It’s fun. It’s not frustrating at all. This is the fun part. We’ve all got to roll our sleeves up and get dirty.”

Busch lost his ride at Penske in December after a series of emotional outbursts inside and outside his car. The team wasn’t performing at times at the level Busch had hoped and the team grew tired of controversy surrounding their driver.

The last six weeks since his release has been a whirlwind of phone calls trying to find a ride, landing with a new team and getting ready for the season.

“It’s been a quick time to look at what went wrong or why it happened, but also why dwell on the past?” Busch said. “Let’s look at the future.”

Busch, who has had problems with his temper throughout his career, is working with a sports psychologist and believes that his move to Phoenix Racing is part of the process of changing himself as a person.

The team doesn’t have a big sponsor to appease and team owner James Finch is less sensitive to public perception, which could allow Busch to have a more relaxed approach to his job.

Busch lives two days a week in a house Finch owns across from the team shop in Spartanburg, S.C., about an hour south of the racing hub in Charlotte. He spends time at the shop working on the cars and going out with his crew.

“[Change] doesn’t happen overnight,” Busch said. “But I’ve put myself in this position with James Finch and this group of genuine, hard workers, this underrated atmosphere of what expectations are really out there.

“It’s this feel of let’s work at this the best we can, we are all smiling and having a good time while doing it. I’ve positioned myself for 2012 to be that opportunity to find happiness and to create the platform I need to be comfortable in.”

Busch is seeking sponsors to bring aboard. He landed Tag Heuer Eyewear as a personal sponsor for 2012, and the company will sponsor the car for the Budweiser Shootout.

On Thursday, Richard Petty said sponsors didn’t want to commit to Busch so soon after his Penske troubles.

“They just didn’t like the personality,” Petty said. “About everybody we talked to, they said, ‘Maybe in six months or a year we can talk about it. But right now, he’s on the front burner. If we put him on the back burner, we might sit down and talk about it.’”

Busch hopes that Security Benefit returns to the team as a sponsor and feels other companies are watching him.

“There’s a lot of key people behind the scenes that are watching very closely and they are connected to a lot of people in this industry. … There’s a lot of interest from genuine groups,” Busch said.

On the track, he’s trying to improve a team that finished 30th in the owner standings with a rookie Cup driver last year in Landon Cassill. He was third in the first practice session Thursday at Daytona.

He said the team is confident after that initial run, but there is more work to do. The team needs to get three cars finished to take to the wind tunnel. The best car will end up being the primary car for the race at Las Vegas while the other two will be primaries for Phoenix and Bristol.

Kurt Busch drives the No. 51 for Phoenix Racing during testing at Daytona International Speedway. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

“We’re going to work hard, work with what we have,” Busch said. “I don’t think there’s any doubt we can improve the points position from last year but we have to be realistic. When you’re in a situation like this and trying to be realistic, you’re more week to week than you are long term.”

Busch, who has 24 career Cup wins, said he can have fun even if he’s not competing for wins on a weekly basis.

“I can have fun without winning,” Busch said. “I can have fun running 20th or just scraping to get back on the lead lap. But it’s more the camaraderie with these guys. For me to take a step back and look at it all, that’s what I’ve been needing to do for a while.”

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DAYTONA PRESEASON THUNDER TESTING: During the Jan. 12-14 test sessions at Daytona International Speedway, fans can submit questions and comments through Twitter @SPEED (http://www.twitter.com/speed) using the #daytonatesting hashtag.