Busch Slides In With Winning Run

Rookie Kurt Busch made his debut at California Speedway a memorable one Saturday, running off to an insurmountable lead, then almost bobbling it away on the last lap of the Motorola 200 in NASCAR’s Craftsman Truck series.

Fortunately for him, he gathered up his sliding Ford pickup in the second turn and held on for the victory, beating Andy Houston’s Chevy by seven-tenths of a second.

Joe Ruttman was third in a Dodge, followed by two-time defending champion Jack Sprague in a Chevy, and Greg Biffle, Busch’s Jack Rousch teammate, the newly crowned series champion. Busch’s victory boosted him into second place in the standings, giving the Rousch team a 1-2 finish.

The race was the first of the Marlboro 500 weekend at the two-mile superspeedway. No crowd figure was announced.

Busch, series rookie of the year who is headed to Winston Cup racing next season, averaged 144.26 mph in the 100-lap race and considered himself lucky to have finished.

“A little slick,” he deadpanned, explaining that on that scary final lap he’d hit a patch of liquid he hadn’t expected to be there.

“I came down in Turn 1 with a little cushion [a 1.5-second lead] and the next thing I knew, I was sliding sideways. Lucky thing I had that cushion.”

Houston, as surprised as Busch, was unable to take advantage of the bobble.

“I saw him go in the corner and get completely crosswise,” he said. “I thought he’d wreck but he pulled out of it. I guess he was thinking about what he was going to say in the winner’s circle. I hoped he’d do it again in No. 3 but he didn’t.”

Until then, Busch had been running away from Houston and Ruttman, who couldn’t make a two-car draft work for them.

Bryan Reffner, winner two weeks ago at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, was ahead in his Chevy when the lead drivers made their final pit stops with 27 laps left. Busch was the first of them out, then quickly separated himself from the pack.

“The crew put me back out there in the lead, and that’s what it takes,” Busch said. “We [put on right-side tires and] made an air-pressure adjustment to loosen up the truck. That’s the adjustment we needed. On the restart, I was able to get the cushion and bring it home.”

First Ruttman, then Houston tried to catch him, in vain.

Said Houston, “[Ruttman] let me go, thinking we could get a run on Kurt, but the deficit never changed.”

Not until that surprising last lap.

The victory was worth $51,435 to Busch and his crew, plus a $10,000 bonus because Busch won from the pole.

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Brazilian Felipe Giaffone has no shot at winning the Indy Lights championship, but that didn’t stop him from qualifying on the pole for today’s 100-mile race, ahead of the three drivers still in the running.

Giaffone qualified at 185.025 mph in the race for Lola open-wheel cars powered by stock-block V-6 engines.

“That tells me my car is pretty fast out there by myself, but the race is a different deal,” Giaffone said.

Series leader Scott Dixon of New Zealand was second at 184.562 and Casey Mears of Bakersfield, third in the standings, was also third in qualifying at 184.399.

Mears’ Dorricott Racing teammate, Townsend Bell, second in the standings, left himself with a tough chore by qualifying only 16th, at 181.901. That means he will have to start in the eighth row, the second-last one, and try to work his way through the field.

Mears also has a day’s work ahead of him. After driving in the Lights race, he will start 15th in the Marlboro 500 champ car race, driving one of Bobby Rahal’s Reynard-Fords. Mears also had little time to sit around Saturday, practicing and qualifying for the two races.

“It was a little busier than I thought it would be,” he said. “But it was kinda nice. It was a good kind of busy.”