Friday, March 5, 2004 | 12:20 p.m.
Ron Kantowski is a Las Vegas Sun sports writer. Reach him at [email protected] or (702) 259-4088.
In that the Busch Series is considered the official developmental series of NASCAR Nextel Cup, I guess that means we can expect to see Matt Kenseth conferring with Jason Keller or Hermie Sadler in the garage area following Saturday's Sam's Town 300, asking how he held his line through 3 and 4, whether he accelerated correctly on the restarts, etc.
Yeah, right.
Kenseth is the reigning Nextel Cup champion, but I don't think it's because he is learning so much from guys such as Keller and Sadler on Saturday and then using the acquired knowledge to beat the best stock car drivers in the world on Sunday.
But taking what he has learned from the way his car handles or the way his tires perform on Saturday could very well give him an edge on Sunday.
"The reason we run a Busch program is because it gives us as drivers another opportunity to try things on racecars, and it gives us an opportunity to drive and get more track experience," said Jeff Burton, who has won the Sam's Town 300 twice.
That would all be fine and dandy, provided it didn't come at the expense of the Busch drivers, who have enough trouble carving out a reputation or a living without the Nextel Cup interlopers interfering.
Nine of these so-called "Buschwhackers" are expected to take the green flag in Saturday's Busch Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. And given that that the past six winners here have been Cup regulars and that last year they finished first, second and fourth, there's a pretty good chance that one of them will wind up being kissed by a showgirl late Saturday afternoon.
Of course, you don't have to be Benny Parsons to figure that out. The best drivers plus the best crews plus a good sponsor usually adds up in a Gatorade shower on Saturday afternoon.
Of all the "idiosyncrasies" about NASCAR that nobody except Darrell Waltrip has the lugnuts to complain about, that the sanctioning body lets its best drivers cherry pick races established for its up-and-comers might be the most confounding.
It would be like letting Tiger Woods play the Nationwide Tour, Pedro Martinez pitch in the Triple-A All-Star Game or Brett Favre throw the football around NFL Europe -- and getting paid on top of what they already earn.
Do you think the guys running around at the back of the Busch pack without sponsor decals could have used some of the $85,000 that Joe Nemechek took out of their checkbooks by winning last year's Sam's Town race?
Of all the complaints about the Buschwhackers -- most of them whispered quietly in the bowels of the garage area -- probably the biggest one is that they take away that many more potential sponsorship opportunities from the Busch guys.
"Every sponsorship that a Winston Cup driver gets for his part-time Busch car is one less that's available for full-time Busch teams," said prominent Busch car owner Clarence Brewer. "Sponsorships are what we run on, and they're getting harder and harder to come by."
While it's got to be a kick for a young driver such as Las Vegas' Kyle Busch to run side-by-side with Dale Earnhardt Jr., which he had the opportunity to do in the rain-delayed Busch race at Daytona, at some point the economics of competing against the Cup regulars begin to outweigh the gee-whiz factor.
Last year, for instance, Todd Bodine was leading the Busch point standings in May yet still was riding around without a logo on his hood.
The only benefit I can see to letting the Cup regulars run circles around the Busch guys is that their presence creates a little more interest in the Busch races, which translates to a few more tickets being sold. While that's true, how much is enough for NASCAR? The sport has become so huge that you could strap Vern Troyer and the guy who played Mickey on "Seinfield" into Dwarf Cars and 50,000 people would buy tickets. And Mini-Me T-shirts with the NASCAR logo on them.
Maybe it's not quite time to ban Cup drivers from running in the Busch series. But maybe it is time for NASCAR to let a little of that network TV money trickle down to some of the Busch teams that could really use it.
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