Busch’s father to sweat out race from LV

Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2000 | 10:24 a.m.

When Kurt Busch takes the green flag in his NASCAR Winston Cup debut this weekend in Dover, Del., the most nervous person in America won't be Busch or his car owner, Jack Roush.

In fact, the one person arguably most responsible for Busch's stunning rise to Winston Cup racing at the age of 22 won't even be at Dover Downs International Speedway on Sunday.

Tom Busch, Kurt's father, will be watching the MBNA.com 400 on television in his Las Vegas home. And that will make him more nervous than if he were sitting among the 120,000 fans on race day.

"I definitely think it'll be tougher to watch it on TV than to go there," the elder Busch said. "There is something about television ... the camera (rarely) shows you what you want to see; when you sit in the stands, you can watch your car.

"When you're watching on TV and they come back from a commercial and the caution (flag) is out, your heart skips a beat and you have to wait and see if your car is in the wreck."

Because of commitments at work, Tom Busch won't be able to attend this weekend's race, but Kurt left no doubt that his father will be in his thoughts when he fires up the No. 97 John Deere Ford Taurus on Sunday.

"It will bring back some Las Vegas memories about all the people that I've worked with along the way and who have helped me get to the level that I'm at," Busch said. "Those people being my father, Tom Busch, and Craig Keough with Star Nursery and Jerry Spilsbury at Quality Air Conditioning; those were my three major car owners to help me get to where I am today -- not necessarily teaching me things about racing but teaching me things about the business, the way of life and the rapport a race-car driver must have with his crew."

Tom Busch, an accomplished driver in his own right, made sure his oldest son learned about race cars from the inside out before he ever allowed Kurt to start driving them.

"We built the car from scratch -- there was no going to the store and buying a car," Busch said. "I wanted him to get a really good knowledge of what car parts were.

"I think it really helped him as far as the tearing it up aspect; I think if all you have is a fat checkbook and the stuff just keeps showing up ... if you work for it, maybe you'll take care of it better. He learned right away how easy it was to tear stuff up, so it was easier to drive better so you didn't have to do so much work Sunday to the following Friday."

Kurt Busch, who has two wins in his rookie season in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series this year, said what he learned working on the crew of his father's race cars still pays dividends to this day.

"He showed me what racing was all about," Busch said. "I was a crew man with him for a good three years before I even jumped into a race car, whether I was waxing it or whether I was changing the radiator or changing springs, he taught me a lot about race cars.

"When we started getting more aggressive in racing and we started racing Modifieds and Late Models, I wanted to give him information all the time about what the chassis was doing because he gave me so much in racing. The only way I could give back to him was to let him know what that chassis was doing and we worked well together and that's what helped me out a lot."

Tom Busch first made his mark on the local racing scene in the late 1970s, when he charged to 12 wins, including six in a row, in the Pure Stock division at the defunct Craig Road Speedway. He added Sportsman Division championships in 1981 and 1982 at Craig Road and a Late Model championship in 1990 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

In 1994, Tom Busch won the Dwarf Car championship at Pahrump Valley Speedway while Kurt Busch finished second in points and was named the Rookie of the Year.

Now that his oldest son is on the verge of starting a career at stock-car racing's highest level, Tom Busch admitted that he never saw it coming -- at least, not in the beginning.

"This is a dream come true, him getting a chance to run in Winston Cup, that's for sure," he said. "Back then, it seemed like it would have been a miracle if it happened at all -- it still is a miracle because racing has changed so much over the years. But he was in the right place at the right time on a whole bunch of stuff.

"When you think about, it's pretty amazing. He was 16 years old when he started driving Dwarf Cars in Pahrump so his driving career is only six years old."

In those six years, however, Busch said he learned quickly that his son refused to be held back by other people's expectations.

"Kurt expects to do well," he said. "My idea of a win is when the car would load itself (onto the trailer) after a race, but Kurt always expected more and was able to achieve more."