Las Vegas’ Busch pleased with finish in Cup debut

Monday, Sept. 25, 2000 | 10:37 a.m.

A capsule look at the NASCAR Winston Cup debut of 22-year-old Kurt Busch of Las Vegas at Sunday's MBNA.com 400 at Dover, Del.:

DOVER, Del. -- For the first time in nearly 48 hours, Kurt Busch allowed himself to smile after his roller coaster of a weekend at Dover Downs International Speedway ended on a positive note.

Busch finished in 18th place, two laps behind race winner Tony Stewart, in his NASCAR Winston Cup debut in Sunday's MBNA.com 400 at the Monster Mile. But his inaugural run in the No. 97 Roush Racing Ford Taurus was far more successful than the box score indicates.

After starting 10th, the 22-year-old Las Vegas native fell back to 30th place before making a charge into the top 15 a quarter of the way into the 400-lap race. Busch got as high as 13th place and was running on the lead lap until he suggested an incorrect adjustment to his crew during a mid-race pit stop.

"We had a good run, I just made the wrong decisions out there," an exhausted Busch said. "We were OK early but when we started making adjustments, it just got worse.

"I didn't give the right feedback on what the car was doing, I just adapted to what the car was doing and I forgot what it was doing at the beginning of the run."

Busch was lapped by Stewart with 100 miles to go and then fell two laps off the pace in the closing laps.

Although he fell short on one of his pre-race goals to finish all 400 laps, Busch was hard-pressed to complain about his day.

"We're very pleased," Busch said. "We got through the first one and that's a big deal. We got the first one under our belts and I got the feel for the car and I got the feel for the other drivers.

"We were on the gas about lap 80 -- we were coming to the front. We got up to about 12th place and things were looking pretty good and then I just made the wrong calls on what to adjust and we just went a little bit backwards on the adjustments."

Busch's mood Sunday was in stark contrast to the way he left the track Saturday evening following the final practice. During the closing minutes of "Happy Hour," Busch scraped the wall coming out of turn four and his crew worked well into the night to repair the damage -- which mostly was cosmetic.

Busch's crew chief, Jeff Hammond, said he was impressed with what he saw from his driver this weekend -- both on and off the track.

"I think the man did an exceptionally good job," Hammond said. "After what happened in Happy Hour, I thought he came out here with a very positive attitude and a lot of determination that he was going to try to keep that car off the wall and keep it on the racetrack and get all the experience he could and he did exactly that."

Hammond even found it hard to fault Busch for making the wrong call on the chassis adjustment.

"Yes, he missed a call," Hammond said. "He told us to do something and we stuck with it for two runs and it was the wrong thing to do. We thought we could work around it, but that's part of that learning curve.

"To a certain degree, I'd like to finish a little bit better, but I'd rather have him learn those things now so we can benefit as we go on through the rest of this season and as he goes into next year."

Team owner Jack Roush, who took a chance on putting Busch in the John Deere-sponsored car to replace veteran driver Chad Little, also was pleased with his driver's Winston Cup debut.

"That was really terrific," Roush said. "To get an 18th-place finish, two laps down ... Kurt set a goal of not having any trouble and finishing on the lead lap and he came awful close to doing that his first time."

The only close calls Busch had came on lap 26, when he deftly avoided two spinning cars in turn four, and in the final 60 laps when he grazed the outside wall coming out of turn two.

Hammond said Busch, who is driving seven of the final eight Winston Cup races for Roush, has re-energized the No. 97 team with his positive attitude and desire to succeed.

"I don't want to knock Chad because he did us a good job while he was here," Hammond said. "But if you look at who's up there today -- who's winning races and who's leading the charge -- it's a young group of guys: Matt Kenseth, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Tony Stewart and now maybe Kurt Busch.

"It's always exciting to have somebody who's very hungry to do well and that's what I see in Kurt. He wants to be a racecar driver, he wants to be a good racecar driver, and today was a good start for the rest of his career."