Hard road for a rookie

Wednesday, Aug. 4, 2004 | 9:57 a.m.

Last year, when he was relegated to running a handful of NASCAR Busch Series and ARCA races, Kyle Busch said it was difficult not being able to race on a regular basis.

Now that he is a regular in the Busch Series, Busch is learning just how difficult it can be to compete week in and week out in NASCAR's second-tier series.

"I haven't really had to adjust much of what I've ever done as far as being a racecar driver," Busch, a 19-year-old Las Vegas native, said. "Last year, when I ran the partial schedule, I thought that that was pretty tough and we weren't able to run good (as I would have liked).

"The Busch Series is a great series to race in, obviously, and we really enjoy racing in there and we're doing fairly well."

For a rookie driver in the series, that could be considered an understatement. Busch has posted three victories this season and has finished in the top 10 in 12 of 21 races. Going into Saturday's Kroger 200 at Indianapolis Raceway Park, Busch is second in the series points standings, trailing leader Martin Truex Jr. by 142 points.

But it hasn't been smooth sailing the past five weeks for Busch, who drives the No. 5 Lowe's Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports. Six races ago, Busch was coming off his third victory in six races and trailed Truex by only 10 points. In the ensuing five races, Busch has failed to finish in the top 10 and has lost 132 points to Truex.

"Obviously, in the beginning of the season and through the midpoint, we were doing really well and we had a pretty close gap on Truex," Busch said. "As of late, I kind of just don't get it -- everybody's doing the same thing they've been doing all year long -- and so am I -- we just haven't really had the luck there toward the end of the race in order to finish where we need to.

"It's kind of a shame here as of late because we're falling a little bit behind in the points ... but nobody's going to give up; we're still going to go out and shoot for this championship and see what we can get."

Busch said his recent downturn is more a result of bad racing luck than anything else.

"We've been running really, really well everywhere we've gone and we've been able to lead races, we've been able to run up front in the top five, top 10," he said. "It just comes down to ... we've just kind of had kind of crazy stuff come our way."

Busch will be looking to turn around his bad luck this weekend at Indianapolis Raceway Park, where he made his professional debut in 2001 in a NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race. In addition to competing in Saturday's Busch Series race, Busch also will race in Friday night's Truck Series event on the .686-mile oval.

The extra 200 laps in the No. 47 Morgan Dollar Motorsports Chevrolet truck, Busch said, should help him better prepare for Saturday's race.

"I think it'll help me a little bit, being able to get into the racetrack and be able to run around there and get the line again and get used to it," said Busch, who crashed midway through the Busch Series race at IRP last year and finished 33rd.

"Track time definitely helps you out. Of course, at a short track where aerodynamics (don't) matter a whole lot, it's pretty easy to go out there and just basically get a baseline setup for your truck and also get the line of the racetrack and just try to drive the track different ways to try to learn some different things, if you can in the truck, to help you out in the Busch car. I think it'll definitely be a positive more than a negative for us."

Busch, who qualified fourth for last year's Busch race at IRP, said the key to both races this weekend will be qualifying well and have good pit stops.

"I think you have to have good pit strategy," Busch said. "Last year, I believe there was only one stop in the (Busch) race so if you pick up a lot of spots on pit road, it'll be pretty easy and if you have a really good racecar where you're able to pass cars and run on the bottom, I think it's pretty good.

"It definitely makes it a lot easier to qualify up front and I think if you're able to do that, it'll definitely be one of those days where you're not having to pass a lot of cars and you can save your tires for the end of the race."

Not that passing cars -- or trucks -- is impossible on the tight oval. In his Truck Series debut at IRP, Busch had to start at the rear of the field after crashing on his second qualifying lap but drove the truck into the top 10 in less than 140 laps.

"It was pretty fun and I had a good time that night, but hopefully we can go back there with the experience that I've gained since then and hopefully I can do a little bit better than that," Busch said.

"Of course, the (Truck Series) is really, really tough -- just like it was back then when I ran it and it still is today because of all the (veterans). Everybody in there is really tough to race against. We're just going to go out there and have some fun with the Chevy Silverado and see what happens."