Columnist Ron Kantowski: Home — at least on short tracks — is where the hard head is

Monday, Aug. 23, 2004 | 9:23 a.m.

Ron Kantowski is a Las Vegas Sun sports writer. Reach him at ron@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4088.

When the fax came over last week stating that budding NASCAR star Kyle Busch would spend a rare off weekend from his full-time Busch Series and part-time Nextel Cup commitments to drive a Legends car at his old stamping ground, the Las Vegas Motor Speedway Bullring, my first thought was "fantastic."

Here's a guy who at least seemed interested in not forsaking his Las Vegas roots on his way to the big time. That's refreshing, given older brother Kurt seems to have uprooted his past and transplanted it in the middle of Tobacco Road.

Given the majority of Nextel Cup races still are within a day's drive of North Carolina and most of its teams have their race shops there, you really can't blame Kurt Busch for wanting to be where the action is. I mean, guys who fancy a career in the computer business usually don't wind up living in Montana.

But after what went down at The Bullring last week, the precocious Kyle Busch, 19, has got to be wondering what the Helena he was thinking by coming back here to run around in circles with the local hobbyists and wannabes.

You would think those guys would want to carry Busch around the track like Cleopatra. That they would feed him the finest meats and cheeses, maybe even massage his racing boots, in exchange for Busch having the decency to grace them with his presence, share a pointer or two and perhaps regale them with stories of what it's like to draft with Little E, have Tony Stewart flip you the finger or confirm that yes, Jimmy Spencer is just as fat as he appears on TV.

Instead, by the time the night was over, Busch must have felt like Marc Antony. No, he didn't fall on his own exhaust pipe, but, depending on what side of the story you get, he did try to figuratively wrap one around the neck of one of his former rivals after the race was over.

Just another Saturday night at The Bullring.

Based on the facts -- Busch was fined $100 after leaning into the car of and exchanging words and/or actions with former rival Spencer Clark, 17, for "conduct and actions detrimental to the betterment of the sport" -- if you weren't there, and maybe even if you were there, you might assume Busch was the one at fault. Clark was not fined or reprimanded although the speedway was upset with his mom for putting out false information on the Internet. Like that's the first time that ever happened.

Yet, guys who stick their heads through another's window net usually have a pretty good reason for doing so. Remember Michigan last year when Spencer came off like a bully when he tried to shake the sponsor patches off Kurt Busch's firesuit? Well, that was only after Busch had radioed to inform his crew he was going to punt Spencer to Ann Arbor, if he got the chance.

Come to think of it, I remember talking to Kyle Busch before this year's Nextel Cup race at LVMS when he said, in so many words, that he had learned from his older brother's missteps and that he would try to spend at least the first part of his professional career trying to make friends instead of influencing people to boo him.

I know, there are two sides to every story. Only a spokesman for his Busch Series team said Busch won't be telling his.

But again, the point is not who got into who's quarter panel, but that in Saturday night bullring racing -- and that's bullring, not Bullring, because it happens everywhere and just not in Las Vegas -- respect and admiration usually run a distant second to jealously and envy.

In most sports, guys who win all the time are revered. In auto racing, especially at the grassroots level, they are usually despised.

Before LVMS turned The Bullring into one of America's most handsome short tracks, it was known as Las Vegas Speedway Park (among other things) where, in an attempt to satisfy my need for speed, I use to watch guys such as Dick Cobb and Tom Busch, the patriarch of the racing family Busch, treat their competition like lap dogs. Or lapped dogs. Local fans rewarded their expertise by booing them unmercifully.

"I watched my father win 15 out of 16 races in a late model series one year and he was booed to no end," Kurt Busch said recently.

So at least he and his kid brother are used to it.

That's just the way it is. But it's not the way it has to be.

For many years, UNLV has held a baseball alumni game, where many of its major league stars, past and present, would come home to play the current Rebels in an exhibition game.

Funny, but I can't recall one of the UNLV whippersnappers ever backing Matt Williams off the plate with a little chin music.