Busch's stunts are good for NASCAR

Nobody finishes in a blaze of something like Kyle Busch.

The something sometimes qualifies as glory -- he has won 11 Sprint Cup races in the past 1½ seasons -- but the something can also resemble an inglorious version of kick the can, with the No. 18 car starring as the can.

That was the case late Saturday night, when leader Busch tried to block slick Tony Stewart heading into Daytona's final turn. The first block worked, on the low side, but Stewart sidestepped to his right -- an incredible move for a 3,500-pound machine -- and got his nose just past Busch's bumper.

Busch reacted a hair too late, and the physics of Stewart's superior position won the duel. Stewart spun Busch's car around and rushed on across the finish line, securing his third Daytona victory and increasing his points lead. Busch's car assumed its role as the defenseless can, hammered first by Kasey Kahne and later by rookie Joey Logano. The hits pummeled Busch into the wall, lifted the car off the track and shoveled it past the checkered flag, 14th.

Busch evidently passed the coherence and concussion tests, but he went mute and let his crew chief do the talking.

Steve Addington correctly concluded that Busch and Stewart raced appropriately. "I'm not pointing any fingers at Tony," Addington said. "He was trying to win the race. Kyle was trying to block him for the win, and we got turned around."

It happens. It happens more often with Busch around, which is bad for the squeamish yet good for the thrill-seekers in NASCAR's chilly post-boom market. If Busch didn't drive so hard, the sport's audience might nod off entirely.

In NASCAR's cast of cartoon cowboy characters, Stewart is often portrayed as a bad guy trying to wear a white hat, a new team owner taking on adult responsibilities and sanding the ragged edge off his scruffy personality. This is Stewart's season thus far, with two recent wins underscoring his remarkable transition from the Joe Gibbs garage to the Stewart-Haas team.

With two recessions battering the Sprint Cup series -- an economic slide slamming into the rear end of a racing slide -- Stewart has emerged as the established impediment to Jimmie Johnson's fourth straight championship.

The real spark

The Stewart bid crackles with energy, but Kyle Busch supplies the tour's real juice. He seems well-suited to the task of wearing the black hat. Busch, the 24-year-old brother of Kurt Busch, graduated from Nevada's Durango High School in 2002, two years before Kurt won the Sprint Cup title. Kurt had already ruffled garage dwellers in ways evidently familiar to cocky young hot shots from Las Vegas, but he can't hold a $100 chip compared to Kyle.

The main question surrounding Kyle's meteoric rise as all-out racer and everything-goes provocateur: Is it totally real or partly real or the shrewd fiction of an actor stirring up the crowd for personal pleasure?

The question often flows from Busch's rivalry with Dale Earnhardt Jr., the tour's most popular driver despite a slump that encompasses just one win since May 2006. Driving for Rick Hendrick, Kyle won four races in his first three full seasons and displayed a few growing pains. Hendrick let him go -- to Gibbs -- and signed up Earnhardt, who missed the field for the 2008 Cup chase in his new No. 88.

Busch dominated the regular season but faltered badly during the playoffs. Busch blamed Earnhardt for ruining his 2009 opener at Daytona ("one guy that had problems all day on pit road made his problems our problem") and six weeks later reveled in his superiority.

"I'm proud of the fact that I'm outperforming a guy that replaced me at Hendrick, but that's not what this sport is all about," Busch said.

Earnhardt's struggles continued through May, prompting Hendrick to demote Earnhardt's crew chief (and cousin) Tony Eury Jr., who was replaced by Lance McGrew.

"It's never Junior," Busch said. "It's always the crew chief."

Earnhardt tends to dismiss Busch's pokes as habitual slaps unworthy of debate. Busch sometimes mentions the heavy fan pressure on Earnhardt, but he seldom misses a chance to land another shot.

The most vivid recent incident came after Busch won a Nationwide Series race at Nashville and, fulfilling a promise to his team, smashed the trophy guitar like a rebelliously destructive rocker. It wasn't just any guitar, but a special-order Gibson/Les Paul model painted on by so-called racing artist Sam Bass.

"A lot of people hated it," Busch said, "and I guess those are the ones with 88 tattooed on their arms…. I've got no issues with Junior. It's his fans that are crazy, but that's all right."

The Junior issue has slipped into summer hibernation. Busch's Daytona crash dropped him to eighth in the points, but he remains tied with Mark Martin for most wins (three). Earnhardt, 39th at Daytona, ranks 21st in points, nine spots out of the Chase field. Busch has led 16 percent of the laps and ranks second to Johnson in miles led.

If he did nothing else, Busch would stand out as a daring master of the wheel. But he seldom stands still. Busch leads the second-level Nationwide Series in points and wins (five). Although he has run just seven times in the truck series, Busch has won twice, with six top-10 finishes. He drove a Chip Ganassi prototype in Daytona's Porsche 250 a few hours before the big race last Saturday and refreshed himself with IV fluids.

His aggression obviously cuts both ways, sending him to victory or damaging his position. Stewart, a quieter driver this year, has completed 99.9 percent of the laps while securing the points lead.

Busch keeps on charging, his satisfaction derived from the joy of driving alone and winning and bowing sarcastically at the finish line.

Jester or giant?

He's both, and right now, NASCAR might not have a pulse without him.

■ Lenox Rawlings can be reached at lrawlings@wsjournal.com.