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Busch has plenty of miles to drive over the weekend
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Published: June 6, 2008
Updated: 06/05/2008 11:35 pm
If it's Friday, Kyle Busch must be in:
a.) Pocono, preparing for Sunday's Pocono 500;
b.) Fort Worth, preparing for Friday night's Truck race at Texas Motor Speedway;
c.) Nashville, preparing for Saturday's Nationwide race;
or d.) on the way to or from all of the above.
Check d).
Busch, the hottest driver in NASCAR, is also the busiest driver in NASCAR this weekend. Busch, the Sprint Cup tour leader with four victories, including Sunday's win at Dover, will try to run in all three of NASCAR's national races this weekend.
"I have a lot to do this week, a lot of laps and miles on the plane… but I'm looking forward to it," Busch said.
Can he will all three?
He has won on all three tours, and more than once on each this year, and he has lost a couple more that he could have won.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. said that Sunday's Pocono race will be run on worn-out asphalt.
"The track needs to be repaved," Earnhardt said. "It's real, real rough, and you are just bouncing all over the place in the car.
"They paved a little strip in turn three, in the third groove, and we're all running around on it, and it had a lot of grip. They need to do the entire track over.
"The racing is going to be pretty strung out. It has characteristics of a road course and a superspeedway. It's a tough track: You carry a ton of speed into turn one, like you're going 205 mph, and have to brake for a 90-degree turn."
Earnhardt is going for his first tour win in more than two years. But he's third in the Cup standings, and making the championship chase appears to be his top priority.
Tony Stewart finally snapped his slump, sort of, by winning his charity race over about 24 fellow Cup stars in Wednesday night's charity feature at Ohio's Eldora Speedway. In fact, Stewart led all 30 laps of the main event.
Of course, he owns the track....
Kevin Harvick started on the pole but never led a lap, and Stewart blew away from Robby Gordon to win by more than a second in the made-for-TV, pay-per-view race.
"I want to thank Tony for inviting me to come play, and I look forward to coming back next year," Gordon said. "I under-drove it the first five laps because I knew it was 30 laps and there would be a lot of cautions. We probably needed one more restart and we might have had a shot."
"After crashing out last year, I was determined to run better," Stewart said.
"To get 25 (Cup) guys, all on the same night, to get an opening in their schedule, that means a lot to me," Stewart said.
One thing to keep an eye on at Pocono this weekend, and the rest of the month is the resurgence of Team Red Bull. Brian Vickers is leading the operation, and if teammate A.J. Allmendinger can get locked into the top-35 this season, newcomer Scott Speed may get a shot at a few Cup runs.
Vickers is 19th in the Cup standings, 197 points behind the 12th place Chase cut. Allmendinger, 37th at Dover, is 39th in the standings, 203 points out of the "guaranteed" top 35.
Speed will also drive in Friday night's Texas Truck race, then fly back to Pocono for Saturday's ARCA 200.
Chip Ganassi continues to be the subject of speculation, with one unconfirmed report that he might even be willing to sell his NASCAR operation to arch-rival Roger Penske. Another report said that Joe Gibbs might be interested in making a bid for Ganassi's Juan Pablo Montoya as Stewart's replacement. Officials at sponsor Target said they're not backing off in their sponsorship support of Ganassi, despite rumors about money issues there.
The Ganassi issues are only part of questions in the Dodge camp, and new Chrysler boss Bob Nardelli may need to address some of these issues soon.
Mike Mulhern can be reached at mmulhern@wsjournal.com.
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