Something in the Air Leads to Busch Victory

Once Tony Stewart’s Chevrolet broke a rod after leading 100 laps, NASCAR’s Winston Cup drivers put on the kind of race Sunday at California Speedway that makes it understandable why millions of fans are attracted to stock car racing.

Twelve lead changes after Stewart pulled into the garage on Lap 128, Kurt Busch, racing’s newest phenom from Las Vegas, outlasted former Winston Cup champions Bobby Labonte and Rusty Wallace to win the Auto Club 500 before 125,000 fans.

Busch credited a late pit decision by crew chief Jimmy Fennig for getting him to the finish line first.

“Right at the end we aired up the tires a little different,” Busch said. “We added a little extra air in all four of them and that gave us an opportunity to run hard right away. Then, with those three late yellow [caution periods], that gave our tires a heat cycle of them and then another and then another. So, with our higher air pressure, we put it to the mat and left them.”

The critical move came after the race’s last restart, 14 laps from the finish. Jamie McMurray was leading, Busch was second, Wallace third and Labonte fourth.

Wallace seemed to be strongest, moving up to challenge McMurray, hoping to end a 71-race winless streak, longest of his career.

Suddenly the pack shuffled and Busch came flying past Wallace and McMurray into the lead.

“Where did he come from?” asked a puzzled Wallace later.

Busch explained his maneuver: “I thought about three-wide for an instant, but I figured we’d all wreck trying to come off [turn] four.... I noticed that [Wallace] drove off in [turn three] way deeper than I thought he should. He pushed coming out of four and I just got my nose alongside his rear spoiler. That provided the draft for my car and then I peeled off toward the inside lane. I went down into turn one and I stood on it coming out of two knowing that I could clear the wall and hold it on the floor. We pulled away from there.”

Just like that, a 24-year-old giving a lesson in driving to a 46-year-old winner of 56 races and the 1989 Winston Cup championship.

Wallace’s version: “I took the lead down in [turn] three. I flew up the race track a little bit. I just could not hold that bottom line. I let [Busch] get underneath me. I tried to get him back. I drove it in real deep in three and slid up again. That was it.”

Once in front, Busch was never challenged as Labonte and Wallace waged a back-and-forth struggle for second place that Labonte finally won.

“Bobby got past me coming to the line for second,” Wallace said. “The white flag is waving, the caution flag is out, all hell is breaking loose and I didn’t get out of the throttle. There was a big drag race coming out of turn four and he beat me by about six inches. It was a cool race. I had a great hot rod today.”

As for that long-awaited win, the ever optimistic Wallace said: “We have a winning team right here. Our cars are running great. We’re getting closer and closer back to victory lane. We’ll get there.”

McMurray faded to fifth as Bill Elliott finished strongly to move into fourth.

Dale Earnhardt Jr., who was a lap down with only 36 laps remaining, not only got his lap back by passing Wallace on a restart, he moved from 17th to finish sixth.

Stewart said he had no warning his engine would let go before a puff of smoke told the story.

“It just went down to the end of the backstretch and broke a rod going into three,” he said. “I just tried to get slowed down and get off the racetrack, so I didn’t oil it for everybody else.”

It was the fifth win for Busch in the last 15 Winston Cup races and he became the first driver to win two races this season. He won at Bristol last month after closing the 2002 season with three wins in the final five races. Sunday’s win was worth $213,150 -- not bad for someone who was racing dwarf cars at Pahrump Speedway in Nevada 10 years ago.

Busch drove Saturday night in a Ford Focus midget race at Irwindale Speedway, a circumstance that gave car owner Jack Roush a scare Sunday morning.

“I got up this morning and turned on television and I heard something about a race car going through a fence and there were some fatalities,” Roush said. “I remembered the conversation that Kurt and I had before he went -- going upside-down in one of those little cars is a bad thing and we sure didn’t want to be part of that.”

” ... I did have a lump in my throat when I heard about it this morning.”

Helen and Paul Bagley of Hesperia were killed at Perris Auto Speedway on Saturday night after they were struck by an SCRA sprint car that flipped over a fence into the infield.

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WINNERS

*--* 1997 JEFF GORDON Chevrolet Year DRIVER Car 2003 KURT BUSCH Ford 2002 JIMMIE JOHNSON Chevrolet 2001 RUSTY WALLACE Ford 2000 JEREMY MAYFIELD Ford 1999 JEFF GORDON Chevrolet 1998 MARK MARTIN Ford

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