Kurt Busch hopes to rebound in Phoenix

Reporting from Avondale, Ariz. — Kurt Busch won’t repair his bruised reputation in a single race, but the former NASCAR champion hopes to at least make progress Sunday.

Now driving for a one-car team after his divorce from Penske Racing in December, Busch is seeking his second career Sprint Cup Series win at Phoenix International Raceway, the second stop on the Cup schedule.

If he reaches Victory Lane for his little team, which is named, coincidentally, Phoenix Racing, Busch also would send a statement that his career wasn’t lost in the aftermath of his emotional meltdown late last season.

Busch’s No. 51 Chevrolet will start 19th in the 43-car field Sunday after he qualified Saturday with a lap of 133.939 mph on the one-mile Phoenix International oval.

“We’ll see how it shakes out,” Busch said after his run. “I have just struggled for qualifying at Phoenix. But we were in the lead last year when we ran out of gas.

“It just comes to that pit strategy and hopefully we’ll find the right stops to make,” said Busch, who finished 39th at last week’s season-opening Daytona 500 after being collected in an early crash.

Veteran Mark Martin, a two-time Phoenix winner who this year joined Michael Waltrip Racing, won the pole with a lap of 136.815 mph and reigning Cup champion Tony Stewart was second at 136.126 mph.

Busch, the 33-year-old older brother of Cup driver Kyle Busch, won the 2004 Cup championship and has 24 career series wins, including two last year.

The Las Vegas native also qualified for NASCAR’s Chase for the Cup title playoff last season and finished 11th in the standings.

But it was a tumultuous season. The mercurial Busch quarreled with crew members and team officials, and threw a tantrum over his in-car radio during a race in Richmond, Va.

Then in November he was caught on camera making profanity laced comments while waiting impatiently for a television interview in the garage at Homestead-Miami (Fla.) Speedway.

The video quickly reached YouTube, Busch’s image was hammered and two weeks later Penske announced it had split with the driver.

With few rides available at NASCAR’s biggest teams, Busch signed with Phoenix Racing, a team owned by James Finch that gets its cars and engines from NASCAR powerhouse Hendrick Motorsports.

Busch also said he was seeing a sports psychologist and was trying to “grow as a person and be a better driver.”

In the meantime, he again made Forbes’ list of America’s most disliked athletes, to which he responded last month: “Yeah, I actually went to from third to tenth [on the list], so I actually think I improved. It is what it is.”

Regardless, Busch has won at least one race in each of his prior 10 years in the Cup series and despite the travails of 2011, he said, “for me to extend that streak to 11 seasons being a race winner at this top level, that is important.”

james.peltz@latimes.com