NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Kurt Busch's career will move straight ahead this week in a Dodge Challenger dragster. (Photo: Tom Roberts)
NASCAR champion Kurt Busch will spend the first off-weekend of the 2010 Sprint Cup season getting his racing career straightened out.
Busch, winner of Sunday’s Kobalt Tools 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway and the 2004 Cup champion, will revisit his drag racing roots during the 41st annual Tire Kingdom NHRA Gatornationals beginning Thursday at historic Gainesville (Fla.) Raceway.
Driver of the No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge for Penske Racing, Busch will wheel his rebuilt 1970 Dodge Challenger against a field of between 70 and 90 veteran Super Gas (9.90-second) quarter-mile racers. Busch will make a minimum of three “time trial” passes on Thursday, and the field will return Friday morning to pair-off and begin eliminations.
“Next weekend is going to be about having some fun, but yet putting together a serious effort,” Busch said after scoring the 21st victory of his NASCAR career Sunday at AMS. “Being a car-owner, I guess, and understanding all the ins-and-outs of putting together a car to go drag racing with, it’s been fun, a challenge. (Sunday) I got to lean on some of the experience I’ve been through in Roy Hill’s Drag Racing School, to get that forward bite right out of the box. On all these restarts, I felt like we had the right grip. We weren’t getting a lot of tire slip. That’s what it’s going to take for me at the Gatornationals, to have everything go our way.
“Just having an off-week, enjoying a great sponsor with Miller Lite, the camaraderie with the guys on my drag car, volunteers – I’m excited about the week.”
Super Gas is one of seven Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series (LODRS) classes that will be contested at the Gatornationals. The LODRS is National Hot Rod Association’s Sportsman series. As such, it is home to a wide variety of racers ranging from hobbyists to highly-competitive, highly-invested teams to young drivers with aspirations of moving into the NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series.
Busch earned his NHRA Super Gas license aboard a 180-mph Top Sportsman-style Ford Mustang at zMax Dragway in Concord, N.C., with instructor Roy Hill doing the grading. Busch rated himself as a “5” on a scale of 10 in a report on Hill’s Drag Racing School website. “I will say that I feel comfortable enough to get in the car and make some passes,” Busch said on the site.
Busch, a 31-year-old native of Las Vegas, bought this Challenger in 2008 and began getting it into race shape in March 2009. The Mopar is powered by a stroked 6.1-liter Hemi V-8 engine, weighs 3,000 pounds and reportedly cranks out an incredible 1,167 horsepower. Busch termed the Challenger a “multi-personality car,” that is a combination daily driver built to run NHRA Super Gas, as well as National Muscle Car Association and International Hot Rod Association events.
Busch’s fascination with drag racing began in the early 1990s when he met a pair of Las Vegas-based NHRA racers - George Marnell, a Pro Stock driver, and Dave Bush, a Super Comp driver. In addition, Busch became friends with two-time NHRA Top Fuel champion Larry Dixon while both were sponsored by Miller Lite.
