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Sprint Cup
CUP: Kurt Busch Hopes To Repeat At Texas
Out of the Chase race, Penske driver seeks another TMS victory.
Kurt Busch is ninth in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series point standings. (Photo: Getty Images)
The Chase has not been kind to Kurt Busch.
The older Busch brother entered the 10-race run for the Sprint Cup championship with the endorsement of a major national magazine as the successor to Jimmie Johnson.
Instead, Busch has had only one top-10 finish in seven Chase races – a fourth at Dover. He has 30th-place finishes at Charlotte and Talladega and is ninth in points entering Sunday’s race at Texas Motor Speedway.
Busch will not be repeating his 2004 championship this season.
He rolls into TMS this week, however, with some history on his side. At this race last year, Busch emerged victorious by 25.686 seconds over runnerup Denny Hamlin, scoring one of the largest margins of victory in modern NASCAR history.
Busch has 10 top 10s and an average finish of 13.1 at TMS in 15 races.
This weekend he’ll be driving the same Dodge that wound up in victory lane in the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte this year. Busch led 252 laps in that race.
At TMS in April this year, Busch finished fourth.
“We won last November’s Texas race and came back with another strong performance there back in April when we finished fourth,” Busch said. “That was the first race with the spoiler, and it made a big difference as far as feeling the immediate impact of it. It will be good to get back out there. With the notes we have, we’re definitely shooting for the stars again this time around.”
Busch said TMS offers special challenges.
“It’s a tough track, especially when the sun is out,” he said. “When the sun starts going down and the track cools off, Texas just feels like it’s the fastest one of them all.
“There’s just a lot of high-speed action at Texas. You really have to get up on the wheel and grit your teeth. You have to push your car extra if you’re going to make it stick and get that extra speed out of it.”
Busch has won twice this season but hasn’t scored since Charlotte in May. A win Sunday would add a nice positive to the end of the season and provide a boost for next year, he said.
“A late-season win carries all the way through the off-season,” he said. “When you win late in the year, it helps carry confidence that the next season will start off well and builds a feeling that you've got everything heading in the right direction.”
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.
The older Busch brother entered the 10-race run for the Sprint Cup championship with the endorsement of a major national magazine as the successor to Jimmie Johnson.
Instead, Busch has had only one top-10 finish in seven Chase races – a fourth at Dover. He has 30th-place finishes at Charlotte and Talladega and is ninth in points entering Sunday’s race at Texas Motor Speedway.
Busch will not be repeating his 2004 championship this season.
He rolls into TMS this week, however, with some history on his side. At this race last year, Busch emerged victorious by 25.686 seconds over runnerup Denny Hamlin, scoring one of the largest margins of victory in modern NASCAR history.
Busch has 10 top 10s and an average finish of 13.1 at TMS in 15 races.
This weekend he’ll be driving the same Dodge that wound up in victory lane in the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte this year. Busch led 252 laps in that race.
At TMS in April this year, Busch finished fourth.
“We won last November’s Texas race and came back with another strong performance there back in April when we finished fourth,” Busch said. “That was the first race with the spoiler, and it made a big difference as far as feeling the immediate impact of it. It will be good to get back out there. With the notes we have, we’re definitely shooting for the stars again this time around.”
Busch said TMS offers special challenges.
“It’s a tough track, especially when the sun is out,” he said. “When the sun starts going down and the track cools off, Texas just feels like it’s the fastest one of them all.
“There’s just a lot of high-speed action at Texas. You really have to get up on the wheel and grit your teeth. You have to push your car extra if you’re going to make it stick and get that extra speed out of it.”
Busch has won twice this season but hasn’t scored since Charlotte in May. A win Sunday would add a nice positive to the end of the season and provide a boost for next year, he said.
“A late-season win carries all the way through the off-season,” he said. “When you win late in the year, it helps carry confidence that the next season will start off well and builds a feeling that you've got everything heading in the right direction.”
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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