Kyle Busch (Right) and new crew chief Dave Rogers (Left) came close to winning the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Dickies 500 at Texas Motor Speedway last week. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

It seems odd, even considering their recent swoon, that Kyle Busch and his former Cup crew chief Steve Addington would be split up. After all, they won 12 races together in the past year and a half. Perhaps Busch is looking for the kind of success he’s found since reuniting with his old Camping World Truck crew chief Richie Wauters. Busch started the truck season with Doug George as his crew chief, won two twice then hit a five-race winless stretch. Then at Bristol, he got Wauters back and he’s won all five times he’s raced in trucks since then.

But winning in Cup is much tougher than in trucks. And the demands on the crew chief are much higher too. Dave Rogers, Busch’s new Cup crew chief, almost won in his first try, at Texas. As often is the case, a new pairing produces a boost in results initially, but then there’s usually a drop, as has been the case with Earnhardt and McGrew.

Busch may wind up wishing at some point that he had Addington back.
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The modern-day Modified cars are headed to Atlanta Motor Speedway for a 150-lap race on the quarter-mile Legends track on the frontstretch of the quad-oval track.

The NASCAR Whelen Southern Modified Tour will run its 2010 season opener following qualifying for the Sprint Cup Series on Friday, March 5. That qualifying session will set the field for the Kobalt Tools 500.

AMS president Ed Clark sounded pleased to be adding a quality event to his track’s already popular qualifying session, but he also expressed interest in trying his hand at driving one of the powerful Modifieds on the track where he is veteran of the Legends series.

“I’d like to try it during a test session if possible,” Clark said.

NASCAR has a long history with the Modified cars, dating back to the formation of the sanctioning body, when it hosted Modified races before focusing its top division on “Strictly Stock” cars. That circuit evolved into the Cup series of today. In the early 1960s, AMS, then known as Atlanta International Raceway, hosted a “Modified 500” race for the Modified drivers of that era.

The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEEDtv.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or Speed Channel

Rick Minter is a veteran, award-winning sports journalist who joined The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 1991 covering motorsports as well as serving as a bureau chief. From 2000-2008 Minter focused on racing exclusively, traveling the NASCAR circuit as the paper’s motorsports writer.

Rick can be reached at rminter@racintoday.com