Busch Gets Right Back on Track

Kurt Busch should beware the fruits of success.

Recent history indicates that repeating as NASCAR’s premier cup champion is not likely, in part because of the stock car organization’s zeal in showcasing its No. 1 driver in the short time between the final race in late November and the season opener here in February.

Not since Jeff Gordon repeated in 1998 has a champion finished better than fourth the year after his season-long success.

“It was a time where it moved so quickly,” Busch said of his whirlwind three months away from the track. “It’s one page after the next and one day after the next. It seemed like I was in Miami the other day, hoisting the Nextel Cup, and then I came back here last week to run the Rolex 24-hour race.

“Yet everything was so planned out that I wish I could just hang out on my couch and make sure the [trophy] doesn’t get up and walk out the front door.”

Busch, 27, won the Nextel Cup driving a Ford Taurus in his fifth full year with car owner-engine builder Jack Roush. He defeated Jimmie Johnson by eight points in the 10-race Chase for the Championship.

Busch asked for and received advice from four-time champion Gordon and 2003 champion Matt Kenseth on how to survive the NASCAR public relations blitz, but still, it was something he had to experience first hand.

“I just told him to be prepared,” Gordon said. “The demands are enormous, much more than when I won the first time in 1995. I told him he’s going to be tugged in a lot of ways, to do what is in his heart, to not be afraid of saying no from time to time because you have to. If you don’t, you’re going to run yourself ragged and get burned out before the season even starts.”

Busch, even though he sounds enthusiastic about starting defense of his title, may be more into that situation.

After a week in New York, where NASCAR and Nextel people kept him occupied with interviews, visits to police and fire stations, autograph sessions, talk-show appearances and countless photo shoots, he went directly to Las Vegas to help his hometown celebrate his win.

“It was a dreary, rainy day and there were about 2,000 people who showed up to see their champion,” he said. “Brian France [NASCAR’s chief executive officer] was with me and it was wonderful seeing a lot of my old friends and schoolmates.”

The champion learned to drive in hobby stocks on the tiny ovals in Pahrump, Nev., and Las Vegas Speedway Park, but when he joined the NASCAR family Busch moved to Concord, N.C., to be near his team. Last year, his family joined him.

“Mom still goes back to Las Vegas to get her pedicures and to get her hair done,” he said. “I’m a family guy. We all are. We’re well grounded.”

Busch’s next move after Vegas was his own, a vacation trip to Tahiti.

“It was something I’d planned in May and I wasn’t going to give it up, even after all the partying,” he said. “I heard there were some big waves that were going to be coming through there, so I had to get out pretty quick. It’s a tough thing to understand what happened to those people with the tsunami.

“I don’t mean to imply that we were close to the tsunami but I was just making a statement on how it hits close to home when you’re sitting over there. It wakes you up to think that you could end up a statistic.”

Now it’s back to business, starting with tonight’s Budweiser Shootout for a purse of more than $1 million. Busch is one of 20 drivers eligible for the made-for-TV race among all 2004 pole winners and former Shootout champions. The Shootout is 70 green-flag laps, totaling 175 miles, but it is divided into two segments. The first is 20 laps, followed by a 10-minute intermission before the 50-lap finale.

Busch just made it into the Shootout. He did not win a pole until the season’s final race, at Homestead, Fla., where he beat teammate Greg Biffle by two-thousandths of a second for the No. 1 spot.

“I had been joking in the pre-qualifying interview [at Homestead] that we needed a pole to get into the Shootout,” Busch said. “Miami ended up being a story book ending for us, and to start that last weekend off by picking up a Bud Pole award and an invite to the Shootout made it even sweeter.”

Dale Jarrett, last year’s Shootout winner in a Ford, won the pole in a blind draw. Biffle will start alongside him with Busch in the third row.

“It’s a nice feeling to be back in the car,” Busch said. “We know we had an extraordinarily awesome year last year, that a lot of things fell into place. Just 10 races, that’s all it takes.”

In the 10-race Chase, Busch had one victory, six top-five and nine top-10 finishes.

“I’m happy but just to be a champion is one thing and to be able to go out and defend that title and achieve another one is something that we’re going to strive for this year with the same type of drive,” he said.

It’s not going to be easy. Just ask Kenseth, Tony Stewart, Gordon, Bobby Labonte and Jarrett. In the last five years, none came close to repeating as champion.