Busch’s Mastery at Bristol Was Not Instantaneous

NASCAR drivers tend to either love or hate racing on the half-mile track at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Put Kurt Busch squarely in the camp of those who can’t wait to get to the Tennessee track for the two Nextel Cup races each season. The first Bristol race of the season is set for today.

“I looked at guys like Darrell [Waltrip] and Rusty [Wallace] and saw just how much they genuinely enjoyed each and every time the circuit raced at Bristol,” Busch said. “I have really grown to like Bristol so much that I’m pretty quick to name it as my favorite track of them all when I’m asked.”

Of course, it’s easy for a driver to like a track at which he has won four times and has seven top-10 finishes in 10 tries.

It didn’t start out that well for Busch on the bowl-like .533-mile oval, though.

Busch, the 2004 Cup champion who switched from Roush Racing to Penske Racing South over the winter, said his first trip to Bristol in March 2001 was “downright ugly.”

“The first time I crashed that day, it was on my own,” he said. “The second time I wrecked, I was in a big pileup. I guess you could say that the third time was the charm in that we punctured the radiator in that crash.

“That put us out for good. They just kept on fixing it and putting me back out there to get track time. When we were finally done for the day, I looked up on the board and there were still about 400 laps of racing left.

“They didn’t have the tunnel down in the third turn at the time, so I was forced to sit there and watch all the others go at it for another three hours.”

Busch completed only 118 laps of the 500 laps that day and was credited with finishing 42nd. He returned to Bristol in August and showed considerable improvement, finishing 26th.

Then, suddenly, he was a dominating driver on the little track.

He won in the spring of 2002 -- his first Cup victory -- and finished second that summer. Busch then ran off a string of three straight victories before finishing eighth in August 2004 on the way to his title.

“I attribute my success at Bristol to my background on the short tracks, my roots of beginning my career on all those little tracks out West, like The Bullring at [Las] Vegas,” Busch said. “I cut my teeth on that type of track, so I think it made for a shorter learning curve.”

Last year was a mixed bag for Busch, with an uncharacteristic 35th-place run in March and a considerably better 10th-place finish in August.

Wallace, who Busch replaced in the No. 2 Dodge, owns the record for Bristol victories with nine. Among active drivers, only Jeff Gordon, with five, has more Bristol wins than Busch.

“As far as the strategy behind my success, I learned from the very first race that you have to be around at the finish to do well at Bristol,” Busch explained. “It really is a situation of surviving the first 400 laps -- keeping the fenders on the thing and staying out of the wall.

“Then, if you’re in good shape after four-fifths of the race, it’s time to really get down to business during the final 100 laps.”

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Two-time Cup champion Terry Labonte always thinks about Dale Earnhardt, the seven-time champion who died in a crash during the 2001 Daytona 500, when he races at Bristol.

Labonte has two wins, 32 top 10s and 19 top fives at Bristol, and two of them evoke his favorite memories of racing at the fast little track -- the summer races of 1995 and 1999 in which Labonte became entangled with Earnhardt and wound up finishing first and eighth.

Labonte, who will retire from Cup after running a partial schedule this season, said, “They were pretty exciting races.

“The first one, when I won the race, I had older tires on, and [Earnhardt] was catching us there at the end. I was going to be fine, but got behind some lapped traffic and lost a little time. He caught me on the last lap.

“He got into me coming to the finish, and I went across the finish line sideways. I knew I was going to wreck, but I never let off, because I was pretty sure I could beat him across the line if I stayed in the gas, I just wasn’t sure what was going to happen past that. But we made it across the line and I won the race.”

The second race was a different story.

“I was actually leading, and the caution came out,” Labonte said. “I slowed down and Darrell Waltrip ran all over me and spun me out with like 10 [laps] to go. And I thought, ‘Shoot!’ I mean, we had a good lead.

“So, I’m sitting backwards on the racetrack and everybody goes by me, and then I get turned around, pit and get four tires. Well, Earnhardt was leading, but was pitting on the back straightaway, so he stayed out, and everyone else stayed out. So, I’m like the only guy who has new tires.

“Well, new tires at Bristol against guys that have 50 laps on theirs, I’m a lot faster than everybody,” he added. “So, I came through the pack and passed Earnhardt and we kind of rubbed each other down the front straightaway. He hit me off of [turn] 2 and it caused a five- or six-car wreck.”

Labonte said the aftermath of that crash was odd, with the popular Earnhardt taking some heat from the fans.

“It was kind of eerie almost,” Labonte said. “The fans really booed him, even his own fans did, I think.

“I told some people, ‘You know, I don’t think he did it on purpose.’ And they were like, ‘You’re the only one who thinks that.’ I was a little hot about it for a couple of weeks, but it made for some cool highlights.

“I think what I miss about Dale is Bristol. When you go there, man I’m telling you, if you were going to win, you were going to race him at some point in the night to do it. We had some fun races there, for sure.”

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The top 35 teams from the previous year’s car owner points are guaranteed a starting spot in each of the first five races of the next season. After today’s race at Bristol, that will revert to the current top 35 in owner points.

Heading into Bristol, Jeremy Mayfield, who has made the Chase for the championship each of the past two years, is 34th, just ahead of rookie David Stremme. Veterans Bobby Labonte and Sterling Marlin are 38th and 39th.