Learning curve in ‘02 put Busch on the right track

Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2003 | 9:05 a.m.

As he prepares to begin his third full season in NASCAR's Winston Cup Series, Las Vegas native Kurt Busch admits he still is dealing with a severe learning curve.

More than learning to set up his No. 97 Roush Racing Ford for a 500-mile race at Daytona or a 500-lap race at Bristol, Busch said his biggest challenge is learning to temper his intense desire to succeed.

Successful in every form of racing he has attempted, Busch said he may have underestimated just how big a jump he was making when he moved from the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series to Winston Cup at the end of the 2000 season.

"I hadn't even won a race yet in the Truck Series when (team owner Jack Roush) came to me and said we were going to go Winston Cup racing," Busch said. "I wanted to win and I wanted to win as bad as I could. I thought I could come into the Cup program and win and get the 97 program turned around.

"Obviously, Winston Cup is a little bit different so it has taken a lot of my head running up against a brick wall and trying to understand what's right at a specific time and then what you can do to learn from that situation.

"So the bad times were just that much harder for me to understand because I've come up so quick. I need to continue that process, but there's no other place to go than Winston Cup racing, so I've got to understand that you can have bad days and still be competitive at the end of the year."

Busch learned that lesson last season as he won his first race, in March at Bristol, struggled through a miserable August slump and then closed out the season by winning three of the final five races and finishing third in points.

"Things were real fun last year; winning races and just competing at this level and being able to learn things and be able to apply them," Busch said Tuesday during a break in testing at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. "We had success and now there is an expectation for this race team."

Although he is considered one of the contenders for the Winston Cup championship this season, the 24-year-old Busch said he still is a work in progress.

"I don't think I know everything there is to know about it, whether it's patience or whether it's setups or whether it's what adjustments to make on pit road; you just continue to do the best that you can with the knowledge you have," Busch said.

"Some mistakes create knowledge and some mistakes are more costly than others, and hopefully we'll keep those to a minimum so we don't sacrifice any points this year going through them. I just still have to continue to learn and get better and hopefully I've got enough of what it takes to make a run at the title."

En route to that destination, Busch said he would like nothing more than to win his hometown race, the March 2 UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

"On my scale of things, Daytona and Indy rank right along with Vegas and this would be the most important race for me to win (this) year," the Durango High graduate said.

"I'll be around for many years. If we don't do it this spring, I won't be disappointed, but we'll surely give it our best effort. I haven't finished in the top 10 here yet so that's obviously the first goal, but we've surely run in the top five both times we've been here." "