Busch looks to find winning stride

Thursday, Feb. 28, 2002 | 10:31 a.m.

Kurt Busch has become so accustomed to winning throughout his racing career that he considers his rookie season in the NASCAR Winston Cup Series "terrible" because it didn't include a victory.

Never mind that the Las Vegas native was only four years removed from the short track at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Never mind that he posted six top-10 finishes -- including a third-place showing at Talladega Superspeedway in the spring -- won his first Winston Cup pole and was second in the Raybestos Rookie of the Year standings.

Busch had won Dwarf Car, Hobby Stock and NASCAR Southwest Series championships by the time he was 21 and won four races as a rookie in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series in 2000. But Busch struggled last season to qualify his Roush Racing Ford, which led to many of his sub-par performances. In 35 starts last season, Busch had an average starting position of 29.4 and 12 finishes of 35th or worse, including seven DNFs.

"It was frustrating, but I didn't let it bother me too bad," Busch said of his rookie struggles. "The (qualifying) issue was something ... I had always looked forward to qualifying and getting the chance to sit on the pole and it was difficult (last year) because I knew that we just didn't have a combination that was good enough for the pole or good enough for qualifying well.

"Every week we were either top ten or (taking a) provisional and it was very difficult to absorb that and understand why. We're trying to do the best we can to alleviate that problem this year and to alleviate all the bad luck that we had. It was a terrible year, not to grab a win."

It seemed if it hadn't been for bad luck, Busch wouldn't have had any luck last season.

"We were running well at Darlington and lost an alternator," Busch said, ticking off his lost chances last season. "We were running real well at Charlotte and lost an oil line. We were leading the race at Rockingham with 100 laps to go and the engine blew up.

"We just had a lot of bad-luck issues ... and it was somewhat difficult to deal with, but I knew that 2002 was just around the corner."

Busch figured he was due for some good fortune this season and, so far, he has been right.

He ran in the top 20 all day during the season-opening Daytona 500 and brought home a fourth-place finish and left Daytona standing fourth in points. Last weekend at North Carolina Speedway in Rockingham, Busch was forced to start at the back of the field (after qualifying seventh) when his team discovered a water leak Sunday morning and had to replace the engine.

After losing a lap midway through the race, Busch battled and got back on the lead lap and finished in 12th place. He comes to Las Vegas third in points behind Sterling Marlin and Ward Burton.

Armed with veteran crew chief Jimmy Fennig and a new crew -- team owner Jack Roush swapped Busch's and teammate Mark Martin's crews during the off-season -- Busch is optimistic coming into Sunday's UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 at LVMS.

"It's great; I can go to them for answers and they've got five years of working together -- that's the crew chief and the car chief -- and that's what I needed, was some experience to fall back on," Busch said. "We were all rookies last season, and experience helps in this game."

As a result, Busch said he felt confident that he could reverse the misfortune he suffered last year and put together the type of season to which he has become accustomed.

"We want to flop everything around 180 degrees from last year," Busch said. "We finished 31st in points and we believe we can be in the top 15. We want to double all the top fives and top 10s and put some wins and poles up on the board. It was something we thought we could do as a rookie but I know we can do as a sophomore with a veteran team."

Busch said he is looking forward to returning to his hometown track, where he posted an 11th-place finish in last year's race.

"We had a good test there (in January) and I always look forward to racing in Las Vegas," Busch said. "I always want to do well, but it would be especially nice to do well in front of my hometown crowd."