Not everyone happy with Busch dominance

A lot of people get a big kick out of watching NASCAR’s Nextel Cup stars racing for fun on Saturdays and dominating the Busch Series.

But lately the drivers and teams that concentrate solely on that so-called developmental or stepping stone series are more and more frustrated by the constant drubbings by drivers now known as “Buschwhackers.”

Kevin Harvick, fifth in the Cup points going into the race at Phoenix today, made a mockery out of the Busch Series this year on the way to his second title. He has led the Buschwhackers’ onslaught with nine victories and has been so dominant he wrapped up the championship last month.

But Harvick is hardly alone in picking on the poor Busch boys.

Cup regulars, who regularly run both series these days, have won 31 of 33 Busch races this season.

Only an amazing upset at Kentucky by David Gilliland, who wasn’t even a full-time driver in the series, and a win at Milwaukee by Busch regular Paul Menard have kept the Cup drivers from sweeping in 2006.

And only rarely are there more than one or two Busch regulars in the top 10 at any race.

Greg Pollex, owner of the ppc Racing team that fields cars for full-time Busch drivers John Andretti and Kenny Wallace, isn’t happy about the situation.

“The series is just not run fair or equitably,” Pollex said.

“If you read articles and the Internet, the fans don’t want [Busch] to be like Cup,” he added. “And they don’t want to watch the Cup drivers. The reality of it is, though, it does help attendance because Sunday’s ticket is so darn expensive a lower middle-class race fan cannot afford it. So he’s got to grab his family and come on Saturday and hope to see those guys.

“And the Cup drivers are very cavalier about the way they race. It’s very evident to watch. They don’t have the same intensity as we do. We’re running for points championships here. It changes the dynamics. You’re robbing from one side to go to the other.”

Pollex said a byproduct of the fans buying tickets for Saturday instead of Sunday “is you don’t see very many sold out Cup venues any more because they’ve messed it up.

“They don’t think long term. If you think long term, you can fix this side, which then puts those [Cup] stands back to being full. There is a bit of a price issue and a bit of a traffic issue, no question about that. But if you follow it through, you can connect all the dots in this.”

Among the suggestions by Pollex are to cut costs drastically to attract more Busch teams by using a spec engine, composite bodies and a less expensive tire.

“Ideally, we could cut maybe $2 million out of the budgets and get this thing down to maybe $2 1/2 million as a base,” Pollex said. “Then we’d have 60 cars in the Busch garage.”

Pollex said he and other Busch Series owners have talked extensively to NASCAR officials about the situation.

“NASCAR realizes the problem they have created. They made everything identical: The long template, the tires, everything. It created an animal they don’t know how to change.

“If they change the cars significantly now and chase [the Cup teams] away, we have half fields or quarter fields. So that creates another problem.”

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Tony Stewart’s victory at Texas Motor Speedway on Sunday helped Chevrolet tie its own record for the most single-season wins in NASCAR’s modern era, dating from 1972.

First set in 1980 and tied in 2004, this year marks the third time the Bowtie brand has achieved 22 victories in one season.

“This is a great milestone for Chevrolet,” said Alba Colon, GM Racing program manager for Cup. “Tying this record is impressive knowing how many great drivers there are and with our competition getting more and more difficult each year. This achievement shows the depth of our teams.”