Odds Are, Busch Is Feeling at Home

When Kurt Busch was 14, he and his father hauled a tiny dwarf car on the road to Death Valley for Kurt to drive at Pahrump Valley Speedway, a quarter-mile clay oval, the only dirt track in the area.

The car was five-eighths scale of a 1932 Vicky, powered by a 1,200cc Yamaha motorcycle engine.

It was the start of a dream for the Las Vegas native, a dream that some day he might drive a Winston Cup car in his hometown.

That was eight years ago. Sunday he will be in one of Roush Racing’s four Ford Taurus cars, teammate of stock car veterans Mark Martin and Jeff Benson, and last year’s rookie of the year, Matt Kenseth.

“I’ve been around racing in Las Vegas since I was two weeks old and my mom took me to watch my dad driving late models on a quarter-mile track, but this will only be my second time on the Las Vegas Motor Speedway track,” said Busch, who hopes to have the same success in stock car racing that Las Vegas natives Greg Maddux and Andre Agassi have had in baseball and tennis.

The only time he raced on the 1.5-mile track was in the 1998 Winston West race.

“It was a Friday night and we qualified 11th and were running for the lead until the crew put right-side tires on the left side, and vice versa. We ended up eighth, but it was a great experience. It’s a great track, wide enough to make for a lot of passing.”

He will start ninth Sunday in the UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 after running a lap Friday at 171.130 mph to become the fastest rookie qualifier. Dale Jarrett won the pole in his Ford at 172.106.

Busch’s career has been meteoric, from Nevada state dwarf car champion in 1995 to the youngest NASCAR Featherlite Southwest Tour champion in 1999 to signing with Roush Racing in 2000 as a result of the Roush “Gong Show” talent search.

“Kurt is as motivated as any young person I’ve known,” said Jack Roush, who moved Busch up to Winston Cup after one season in Craftsman Trucks. “He adapts quicker than anybody, young or experienced, that I’ve had a chance to work with.”

Last year, he won four races, four poles and finished second, behind teammate Greg Biffle, in the truck series, earning rookie-of-the-year honors.

“It seems like I’ve been a rookie every place I’ve been since 1998, so being a rookie in Winston Cup isn’t anything new to me,” he said.

In 1994, as a junior at Durango High, Busch finished second in Nevada dwarf car points and was rookie of the year. That same year, his father, Tom, finished third in points.

The two were racing legends cars in the final race of the 1996 season at Las Vegas Speedway Park when the elder Busch was involved in a frightening accident.

“I was running second and he was fifth,” recalled Kurt. “It was a big field, 35 cars, and a lot of [drivers] weren’t very experienced. I had passed this lapped car and when my dad tried to pass, the lapped guy gave him some trouble. My dad flipped and hit the wall upside down. He walked away from it, but later he found he had broken the second vertebra in his neck.”

That accident has prompted Busch to be more safety conscious than many drivers.

“I went into overkill on neck braces. This HANS [head and neck support] device is something I looked into last year and implemented into my car. Being a smaller guy [5 feet 11, 150 pounds] probably helps out. I’m able to get in and out of the car quickly. That’s something the larger guys, like Michael Waltrip, are troubled with, getting in and out of the window in an emergency. I’ve practiced getting in and out of the car with the HANS device on.”

Sunday’s race will be only Busch’s eighth Winston Cup race. His first was at Dover, Del., last September.

“I’ll never forget Dover. Right after I got out of the car after qualifying, Dale Earnhardt was the second person to come over to me. . . . He asked me if I was going to lift [my throttle foot], because he was sure I wasn’t going to lift, and then he laughed and asked me if that was all I had.

“I thought I was doing pretty good, because it was my first-ever Cup race and I had just qualified 10th, so it was pretty funny, but also an honor.”

Busch also got the “honor” of being the target of an obscene gesture from Earnhardt before he was killed in the Daytona 500 two weeks ago.

“I guess he was doing what he liked to call ‘rookie training,’ but he was the seven-time champion, so I took it in stride,” Busch said. “We got together on the straightaway, bumping doors. Then going into [Turn] 4, he was on the outside and wanted to get to the center off the corner, but I was there. I guess he thought I should move aside, but I didn’t.

“My spotter had told me to follow him, even if he stopped to get a hot dog. My parents really enjoyed the way Dale raced, the way he changed other people’s driving styles. Because my dad liked him so much, I liked him too. I’m just sorry that I won’t be able to compete against him again.”

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NASCAR This Weekend

UAW-DAIMLERCHRYSLER 400

* Where: Las Vegas Motor Speedway (tri-oval 1.5 miles, 12 degrees banking in turns)

* When: Sunday, 11 a.m.

* Race distance: 400.5 miles (267 laps)

* Last race: Steve Park honored his late boss by driving a Dale Earnhardt car to victory on Monday in the Dura-Lube 400. Park held off Winston Cup champion Bobby Labonte by two car-lengths in the rain-delayed race at North Carolina Speedway. The race began Sunday and was postponed by rain after only 52 of 393 laps.

* Last year’s race: Jeff Burton won the rain-shortened event. NASCAR stopped the race after 148 of a scheduled 267 laps.

* Fast fact: Jeff Burton outraced brother Ward to the finish line in 1999. It was the first 1-2 finish by brothers since Terry Labonte beat Bobby in 1997 in Talladega, Ala.

* Next race: Cracker Barrel 500, March 11, Hampton, Ga.

* On the net:

https://https://www.nascar.com