LV’s Busch places career-best 11th

Steve Guiremand

Monday, March 5, 2001 | 10:01 a.m.

It was a happy homecoming for Kurt Busch at Sunday's Las Vegas 400.

But it almost was a very happy homecoming for the rookie Winston Cup driver from Durango High School.

Although he finished a career-best 11th in the 43-car field and earned a $80,575 payday, Busch narrowly missed out on his goal of placing in the top 10.

"It was not too bad," Busch said of his performance. "But we just missed the top 10."

Busch did his best to try to catch Jimmy Spencer for 10th place but just came up short at the wire.

"We almost grabbed a top 10 here," Busch said. "I was hoping (Kevin) Harvick (who finished eighth) would stick around a while and ruffle up (Ron) Hornaday and Spencer so I could catch them, but he (Spencer) was just too quick."

Still, considering Busch placed 41st in the season-opener at Daytona and 36th last week at Rockingham thanks to a couple of minor crashes, bouncing back to finish on the lead lap at his hometown track had to be considered a major accomplishment for the 22-year-old product of the Roush Racing driver development program.

"It was great just to finish," Busch said. "That's what we needed to do. We had a couple of rookie mistakes at Daytona and Rockingham. We just needed to put together a solid run."

Busch's run was more than solid. He spent most of the day in the top 10 and got as high as fourth place on the 103rd of 267 laps.

But a lengthy pit stop with about 40 laps to go came back to haunt him at the finish.

"We put four tires on," Busch said. "I thought we could have gotten by with just two. It would have been a gamble. That (pit stop) put us back into 15th position. We got back up to 11th but ..."

A few extra seconds easily could have made the difference of finishing in the top 10.

"We ran with the leaders a little bit in that they were in my windshield and there were a lot of guys behind us," he said. "That's what it takes if you try to consistently do this. We needed to get back on track. To come by the stage and get some cheers at the end this time was a little different."