Busch dominates at Bristol, again

Monday, March 29, 2004 | 9:23 a.m.

Kurt Busch was born and raised in Las Vegas and now lives in North Carolina, but he continues to make himself at home at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Busch led the final 119 laps of Sunday's Food City 500 NASCAR Nextel Cup race and posted his third consecutive victory at the half-mile oval. It was the ninth career Nextel Cup victory for Busch, who has won four of the past five races at Bristol.

Busch joined NASCAR legends Darrell Waltrip, Cale Yarborough and Fred Lorenzen as the only drivers to have won at least three consecutive races at Bristol.

"Those guys were before us and probably before I was even born, but this racetrack is really tailored to a different type of guy, a mindset or a setup or just luck," Busch, 25, said. "The way that DW was able to win seven in a row here -- 12 overall -- there's still a lot of years ahead of me but we've gotten off to a great start."

Busch held off veteran Rusty Wallace, who led four times for 100 laps but saw his winless streak stretch to 104 races. Kevin Harvick, Sterling Marlin and Matt Kenseth rounded out the top five.

Busch was able to pull off the victory despite a drop in horsepower in his No. 97 Roush Racing Ford and a questionable decision not to pit with the rest of the leaders during a late-race pit stop. As a result of the latter move, which angered his crew chief, Jimmy Fennig, Busch ran the final 142 laps on the same set of tires.

"Today didn't come without a bunch of adversity," Busch said. "One thing we did struggle with all day was the ability to run RPM in the car. The team will obviously go back and dissect all of our problems. Whether it was the clutch slipping or a brake dragging or just lost the power due to the timing in the engine, I don't know.

"With a little bit of the power missing, it just had a ton of forward bite. That obviously gave us good runs coming off the corner, so we had to generate corner speed. We adjusted throughout the day for that and it drove more like a Busch Series car would. We were able to stay positive and that long green flag run helped me understand how good our car was on the longer runs."

Busch, who was running second at the time, stayed out on the track when most of the leaders pitted under caution on lap 382 of the 500-lap race and took over the lead. After the race, Busch admitted he had made a mistake.

"We had 20 laps on our tires and there was about 140 to go and I looked up in the mirror and a couple of guys didn't pit behind me so I just ... stayed out," Busch said. "Lo and behold, those guys were a lap down so it was a decision I was wrong on and I had to bail myself out."

Fennig initially was visibly upset when his driver didn't come in for new tires, but later said the rash of late-race caution periods played into Busch's hand.

"I was upset because I felt we needed to pit, but Kurt knew what he had and here we are in victory lane," Fennig said. "I felt we needed tires, but I'll tell you one thing: I probably have the best guy in the business about taking tire management. He knows how to take care of his tires.

"I believe (the late cautions) helped us (because) we weren't wearing tires out."

As a result of several on-track and off-track run-ins last season with veteran drivers Jimmy Spencer and Sterling Marlin, Busch clearly was not the crowd favorite Sunday. Many in the crowd of 160,000 booed Busch as he celebrated in Victory Lane and there were reports of fans throwing objects onto the track after Busch took the checkered flag.

"That happens quite often at some of our tracks," Busch said of the debris that littered the track. "At Daytona (in July 2002), they threw their seat cushions because (NASCAR) didn't throw a red (flag) at the end, so they got a red this time but they probably didn't get the winner maybe that they wanted, or it was the fact that we now have won four of the last five."

Kenseth maintained the series points lead with his fifth top-10 finish in six races while Busch moved into second place, 21 points behind his Roush Racing teammate. Busch has climbed from 16th to second in points since the season-opening Daytona 500.

Another Las Vegas native, Brendan Gaughan, finished 20th after running in the top 10 most of the race. He was in 11th place late in the race when he was hit from behind, spun and hit the inside guardwall on the frontstretch. Gaughan was able to recover and continue, but lost nine positions.

"We had a fantastic racecar, the best one we've had all year," said Gaughan, who qualified a season-high seventh. "I don't know what you've got to do to earn these guys' respect. I've been polite to everybody.

"I understand that I'm a Raybestos Rookie but when it wasn't my day the last five races, I was pretty darn good to all these guys. It was my day today and guys just run the dog pooh out of you. I'm not going to give up ever but the right thing to do is to give that one little space if it isn't your day. In the end of that thing we're trying to get a top 10, we're trying to get the Kodak team where we belong and guys were just being jerks."

Gaughan remained 26th in the Nextel Cup points standings.