Busch sibling rivalry goes from zero to 60 in one car wreck

Thursday, June 7, 2007 | 7:16 a.m.

In January 2005, as Kyle Busch was preparing for his rookie season in the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series, older brother Kurt Busch was reminded of the nasty sibling rivalry between Brett and Geoffrey Bodine that spilled over onto the track a decade earlier.

The Bodine brothers wrecked during the inaugural Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1994 and, during live television interviews immediately after the incident, the brothers let what had been a private family feud spill into the public spotlight.

Kurt assured a reporter that nothing like that would happen if he and Kyle were involved in a wreck.

"The brother tie that we have is very strong," Kurt said at the time. "We may have a flat tire that comes up from some of his debris or we (may) get wrapped up in a wreck, but it definitely won't reflect anything different as far as our relationship and the way that I'll react to it."

That might have been wishful thinking on Kurt's part. According to Kyle, the two have spoken only once since they crashed each other out of NASCAR's all-star race May 19 at Lowe's Motor Speedway near Charlotte, N.C.

Kyle was asked Tuesday during a national teleconference how his older brother was handling what has been a frustrating season to this point.

"Honestly, I can't answer that," Kyle said. "I only spoke with him, lately, after the all-star race there and it was a short, one-subject conversation, so that was about it."

The incident during the NASCAR Nextel All-Star Challenge was the first time in nearly 90 Cup races that the brothers, who both hail from Las Vegas, had wrecked each other.

Remembering Bill France Jr.

Bill France Jr. gave up the day-to-day operation of NASCAR about a year before Kyle Busch made his Nextel Cup debut in 2004, but Busch said he was lucky enough to spend some quality time with the man who guided NASCAR's meteoric rise in popularity.

France died Monday in Daytona Beach, Fla., at age 74.

"I was able to spend some time with him this past winter on his boat down in Key West," Busch said . "I just had a great time getting to know him a little bit and getting to understand more about NASCAR.

(He was) definitely a class-act gentleman and a guy that I would have loved to have spent more time with and gotten to know a little bit better."

Busch said he spent half a day on France's boat, fishing with NASCAR's vice chairman and Busch's team owner, Rick Hendrick.

"Being able to go and spend some time with him and just get to know him a little bit better definitely meant probably more to me than it did to him," Busch said, "but it was still a life-moving experience."

Gaughan to Texas

Brendan Gaughan, who won four consecutive NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series races at Texas Motor Speedway in 2002 and 2003, has not posted a top-10 finish at the 1.5-mile track since his return to the Truck Series in 2005.

Gaughan, a Las Vegas native, is at a loss to explain his recent drought at the Fort Worth track, which hosts the trucks Friday night.

"If I knew how we did it, we'd be out there still doing it," he said. "We had some special years. We had a very special race team. We had a very special truck. We had everything right.

"I feel this team is starting to get that feel to it like we had a few years ago."

Gaughan is 15th in Truck Series points after eight races.

Kyle Busch's career NASCAR Nextel Cup victory total

Kurt Busch's career NASCAR Cup victory total

"It's about racing people with respect and he hasn't done that with anybody for a year. ... There are only a couple of bad apples out there and he's one of them."

NASCAR Nextel Cup Series driver Tony Stewart, on racing against fellow veteran driver Kurt Busch