Columnist Brian Hilderbrand: First IROC victory brightens Busch’s weekend

Tuesday, April 8, 2003 | 9:37 a.m.

Brian Hilderbrand covers motor sports for the Las Vegas Sun. His motor sports notebook appears Friday. He can be reached at bh@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4089.

Kurt Busch may have slipped a spot to third in the NASCAR Winston Cup standings with his 19th-place finish Sunday at Talladega, but it still turned out to be a memorable weekend for him.

Busch, a Las Vegas native, earned his first career victory in the International Race of Champions on Saturday in only his second start in the all-star series.

"This is awesome," Busch said after the race. "It's something that I'll cherish forever, trying to race with the best of the best."

Busch, who finished second to Roush Racing teammate Mark Martin in the IROC opener at Daytona, moved into the IROC points lead by five points over Martin. Round 3 of the four-race IROC series will be July 12 at Chicagoland Speedway.

While Busch survived some bumping and banging in Saturday's IROC race, he wasn't as fortunate in Sunday's Cup race. Busch escaped the 27-car pileup early in the race but had a potential top-10 finish derailed after he and Roush Racing teammate Greg Biffle made contact midway through the race.

"We skated through the big wreck at the beginning," Busch said. "We were on the lead lap and my deal was I had a 10-mile-an-hour run on my teammate (Biffle) and he pulled out in front of me. That's fine, but we ended up running out of racetrack and we wrecked. I had a pretty good run and didn't expect him to come up like that."

Busch also collected Tony Stewart in the incident and Stewart voiced his displeasure with Busch after the race.

"(Stewart) ended up on my outside when Biffle pinched me up against him," Busch said. "It wasn't like I ended up running into (Stewart) purposely; it was just an accident.

"My teammate pulled out in front of me and I didn't have enough time to make a move to get around him. If I would have slammed on the brakes, we would have lost the draft."

Some observers felt Earnhardt had dropped below the yellow "in bounds" line on the bottom of the track to make the pass, but NASCAR said Earnhardt already had passed Kenseth before he went below the line. NASCAR has black-flagged several drivers in the past for going below the line to complete a pass.

The harshest criticism of NASCAR came from team owner Bill Davis, who told the Lakeland (Fla.) Ledger, "The rules don't apply to the company car."

"Last year, we definitely lucked out at this race," Gaughan said. "We failed to qualify, got into the field when another competitor was found to have an illegal spring, blew an engine in happy hour, spun twice during the race and still managed to finish ninth.

"This time, we would like to do even better and with a lot less stress."

Gaughan is third in NCTS points after three races.

Austin Cameron is the defending winner of the race, which will be televised by the Speed Channel on a tape-delayed basis on April 19.