Columnist Brian Hilderbrand: Kyle Petty to drive a Porsche Saturday in Phoenix

Tuesday, April 6, 2004 | 9:49 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.

Not every driver will be idle this weekend when the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series takes its traditional weekend off for the Easter holiday.

Kyle Petty will return to the Grand American Rolex Sports Car Series and compete with Gunnar Racing in Saturday's Phoenix 250 on the 1.51-mile infield road course at Phoenix International Raceway. Petty, who will drive the No. 45 Porsche GT3 RS, has competed in seven Rolex Series races during the past three years.

"It's no secret that I love racing in the Rolex Series," Petty said. "I try to do it every chance I get and with Nextel Cup being off (this) weekend, I jumped at the chance to get back in a sports car.

"I'm looking forward to running at Phoenix because, in the past, I've only been able to race with the series at Daytona and Watkins Glen. Those tracks have a lot more straightaways and sweeping turns, but Phoenix is much shorter and a lot tighter. It should be a fun track to learn and make things pretty exciting come race time."

Petty, who teamed with John Andretti to win the GT class at Watkins Glen International in 2001, said driving a sports car is a nice break from muscling a 3,400-pound stock car 36 weekends a year.

"Stock cars are just so heavy," Petty said. "The Rolex Series cars are such agile cars (and) they are fun to drive. From a driver's perspective, I don't think I've ever sat in anything that wasn't fun to drive, but these things are a thrill to drive.

"The difference between a Porsche and a stock car is that a stock car is like driving your family car. You're out there and you're hammering around in your family car -- your family station wagon or family four door. Then all of sudden your father tosses you the keys to his sports car and says go take it around the block. It's totally different. It's still got four wheels, still got a steering wheel and still got an engine, but it's a totally different feel."

Busch, who holds a 19-point lead over Roush Racing teammate and defending series champion Matt Kenseth after races, also led the standings for one week last year after two second-place finishes in the first two races of the season.

"As the season progresses, we'll see where we are in points," Busch said. "It's great to be the points leader and it's great to have a good finish for (sponsor) Irwin, but we've got to be able to attack in those last 10 races and so far we've done a good job with consistency."

After a 16th-place finish in the season-opening Daytona 500, Busch has climbed to the top of the standings with five top-10 efforts in the past six races -- including a victory two weeks ago at Bristol Motor Speedway. Busch finished sixth in Sunday's race at Texas Motor Speedway.

Under NASCAR's new championship format, the top 10 drivers -- and those within 400 points of the leader -- after 26 races will be eligible to compete for the Nextel Cup championship in the final 10 races of the season.

"I was once a Winston Cup points leader for a race and now I'm a Nextel Cup points leader, but it's not at the right time," Busch said. "We've got to keep working and make sure that we're there when it counts."