Busch brothers banquet snubbed in own hometown
When the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series circuit makes stops at various tracks around the country that drivers consider to be their home tracks, said drivers look at these visits as a homecoming of sorts, a chance to race in front of the “home crowd,” a chance to make their hometown fans proud.
The 2011 race season is over, of course, but the top drivers in the Sprint Cup Series have been spending the last few days in Las Vegas, specifically the 12 drivers who competed in the Chase for the Sprint Cup.
The 2011 Chase field included two drivers from who hail from Vegas—the brotherly duo of Kurt and Kyle Busch. While the two no longer have family residing in the area, Las Vegas is where they’re from, making Champion’s Week a return home for the pair.
But it’s not such as sweet a homecoming as it could have been, though. While all 12 Chase drivers have either been required to or invited to participate in many of the Champion’s Week events, only the top-10 drivers are honored and recognized, for that matter, at the annual awards banquet that wraps of the season and the multi-day festivities in “Sin City.”
That only leaves two Chase drivers out in the cold come banquet time. It just so happens that this year, the two drivers who probably won’t even get a mention during Friday night’s banquet festivities are the two drivers who at least used to call Las Vegas home—the Busch brothers.
An altercation in the Camping World Truck Series race at Texas Motor Speedway resulted in Kyle Busch being parked for the Cup race at Texas two days later. With one fewer race than his 11 fellow-Chasers, Kyle Busch dropped outside the top-10 to finish out the year in 12th position.
Unlike his brother, Kurt Busch was a fixture in all 36 races, including the 10 Chase races, in 2011, but the wheels fell off his season the last couple of events, including falling out of the race because of a transmission failure within the first 10 laps of the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway. After ending the year on a sour note, Kurt Busch finished out 2011 in 11th spot.
The yearly early December festivities in Las Vegas are supposed to be a time of celebration for Sprint Cup’s finest. But this year, the two drivers who won’t be celebrating with their 10 fellow-Chasers will get the proverbial cold shoulder in their own hometown. That probably makes the sting of being left out even harder to take.
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