Things Still Going Right for Busch

For Kurt Busch, last season was about being in the right place at the right time -- on and off the racetrack.

So far in 2005, more of the same.

Reigning champion Busch is back in the NASCAR Nextel Cup points lead heading into today’s race at Atlanta Motor Speedway, thanks to the sanctioning body taking 25 points away from Las Vegas race winner Jimmie Johnson after his car failed a postrace inspection.

Busch, off to a great start this season with finishes of second, third and second, went into last week’s race leading Johnson by five points and came away from his latest runner-up finish trailing by 15 points.

The penalty against Johnson after his Chevrolet failed the minimum height requirement put Busch back on top by 10 points.

Busch said it’s much too early for the points, or having the series lead, to make much of a difference.

“We’re only three races into this deal, and March is way too early to talk about where you are in the points,” Busch said. “Obviously, we want to go out and earn as many points as we possibly can -- that’s what is important right now. Not necessarily whether we’re in first, second, third or whatever.”

Based on the first three races, it appears the championship could be a season-long battle between Roush Racing and Hendrick Motorsports.

Hendrick drivers Jeff Gordon and Johnson have won two of the first three races and rookie Kyle Busch -- Kurt’s younger brother -- has won a pole at California and finished second in Las Vegas.

Greg Biffle got the other race victory and, along with Kurt Busch, Carl Edwards and Mark Martin, is part of a Roush foursome among the top nine in points.

“This penalty certainly won’t affect the way we have to race against these guys in the future, because right now it looks like they’ll be the ones to beat further down the road,” Kurt Busch said. “So the penalty is nothing we’re focusing on. They’ve been fast in all three races this year, and I don’t see any sign of that changing.”

This is all reminiscent of last year, when Busch could do no wrong and bad things always seemed to affect the other guys more.

On the way to his first Cup title, Busch managed to overcome crashes, mechanical problems, pit stop errors and whatever other obstacles came into the path of his No. 97 Roush Racing Ford.

What NASCAR fan will ever forget the sight of Busch narrowly missing the wall after his tire broke, not only avoiding that disaster but also bringing out a caution flag that saved him from going a lap down in the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway?

The result was an eight-point victory over Johnson in the inaugural Chase for the Championship.

And this isn’t even the first time he has found himself in the points lead because of a penalty to another driver.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. was docked 25 points for uttering a curse during a live TV interview following a victory last October at Talladega -- part of the 10-race playoff-style Chase. That penalty cost Junior the points lead and thrust Busch to the top, where he remained to the end of the season.

“It’s a familiar scenario,” Busch said. “Last year we picked up the points lead off of a penalty during the Chase, when points were even more crucial. But, at the end of the season, we saw that the difference didn’t come into play.

“We’re even earlier in the season this time, so it’s really too early to contemplate how and if this will affect us.”

Right now, the champ, with finishes of sixth or better in 11 of his last 13 starts, is just concerned about continuing to run well with the rest of the 36-race season looming ahead.

“We’ve done a terrific job in the offseason to carry over our momentum from last year,” he said. “With three top-threes in three events, we’re defending the championship in the fashion that we wanted to.”

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A gamble that paid off last Sunday in Las Vegas may have Rusty Wallace and his team rolling the dice more often during the rest of 2005.

Wallace was outside the top 20 for most of the race before he and crew chief Larry Carter finally agreed to unplug the right front shock absorber on a late pit stop -- a move that worked well enough for Wallace to finish a respectable 12th.

“We were hedging on making that call to unplug the shock in favor of maintaining track position, but we figured being satisfied with running 22nd just wasn’t enough,” explained Wallace, who is running his final season in Cup. “We finally made the call to go for it and got us a decent finish out of the day.

“I’d say we learned from that and we’ll be willing to take more chances during the rest of the races.”

Wallace goes into Atlanta seventh in the season points. Had he finished 22nd in Vegas, the 1989 series champion would be 11th.

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General Motors drivers have been nearly unbeatable since Atlanta Motor Speedway’s oval was reconfigured in 1997.

In the 15 races since the D-shaped track was lengthened from 1.522 miles to 1.54 miles and the start-finish line was moved to what was the backstretch, GM cars have won 14 times.

Pontiacs, which no longer compete in NASCAR’s top series, won five races, while Chevrolets have won nine times, including the last four.

Tops among the GM drivers is Bobby Labonte, who won four times in Pontiacs and once -- spring 2003 -- in a Chevy. Dale Earnhardt Jr. is the defending winner of the spring race, while Jimmie Johnson won the fall event last year and Jeff Gordon took the fall race in 2003.

The only non-GM victory at Atlanta during that span was by Kurt Busch in the fall of 2002.