Kurt Busch Joins Elite Group In Vying For The Charlotte Sweep
Kurt Busch (No. 2 Miller Lite/Vortex Dodge) defied the burden of past performances at Charlotte Motor Speedway to win last weekend’s NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race.
The challenge of becoming just the seventh driver to sweep the all-star and Coca-Cola 600 races would appear just as daunting or even more so.
Busch, the 2004 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion, has been hit-and-miss at Charlotte – with more misses than hits in NASCAR’s longest race.
The 31-year-old Busch has never finished higher than 11th in nine Coca-Cola 600 appearances.
His last four finishes, since joining Penske Racing, are 34th, 16th, 32nd and 39th. His overall Driver Rating is 81.6 at Charlotte, second worst among the current top 12 in NASCAR Sprint Cup standings, as is his average finish of 20.9.
Busch’s performance in the 2007 edition of the race, however, shows that the Las Vegas native is capable of pulling off the rare Coca-Cola 600-All-Star “double.” He led 107 laps of that race before being sidelined by an accident.
Another positive is the team’s 2010 addition of crew chief Steve Addington, who along with Busch, celebrated his first All-Star win.
“We came in totally different to this race to try to learn for the 600 because it’s going to be a long race and the race track is going to get rubbered up, get slick, things like that,” said Addington, who called the winning
set-up “a science project.”
What Addington and Busch cooked up in the figurative laboratory just might be the recipe for the driver to score his first Coca-Cola 600 victory.
“We feel very comfortable going into the 600,” Busch said. “We have to pace ourselves for the daytime and get into the nightfall, see how things play out for us.”
Memorial Day Weekend has been a traditional celebratory event for Penske Racing. Owner Roger Penske has won the Indianapolis 500 15 times and appears the favorite to capture this year’s race, having won the pole and qualifying three cars in the top four starting positions. “The Captain,” however, has yet to win at Charlotte.
That might create a rivalry between the teams sharing Penske Racing’s facilities in Mooresville, N.C. but not from Busch’s perspective.
“When they don’t win, we scratch our heads,” he said. “So it’s not necessarily a competition between the NASCAR and the IndyCar side. It’s just all an effort that we’re all pushing hard at Penske. It’s just on the NASCAR side, we want to do better.”
In The Loop: Busch-Hamlin Controversy Harm JGR Momentum?
When they’re not winning, they’re feuding.
Denny Hamlin (No. 11 FedEx Office Toyota) and Kyle Busch (No. 18 M&Ms Toyota) got into each other during the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race on Saturday night, a skirmish that eventually led to a Busch wreck.
The timing is unfortunate, and may be a momentum killer. The two have combined to win the last three points races, and four of the last five. Clearly the two hottest drivers in the series, that success may halt if any ill will remains — and they don’t each conquer their Charlotte demons.
Busch’s record at Charlotte is the most perplexing. Some of his statistics are dominant. The problem is, none of his finishes are.
Last season’s two Charlotte runs are a microcosm of Busch’s career at the 1.5-mile track. He did have two top-10 finishes, but he was so much better than that.
In finishes of sixth and eighth, Busch averaged a Driver Rating of 120.5, an Average Running Position of 5.9 (in last year’s 600 it was 1.6), 51 Fastest Laps Run and a Laps in the Top 15 percentage of 91.9%.
Busch, who won his 70th NASCAR national series race last week in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series event at Charlotte, comes into this weekend’s event ranked second overall in Driver Rating with a 104.4 (Jimmie Johnson is first with a 118.9).
Then there are the uncharacteristically low numbers compiled by Denny Hamlin.
Hamlin’s Charlotte Driver Rating of 82.6 makes Charlotte his fifth-worst track in terms of the Loop Data statistic.
But there’s reason for optimism, and it all stems from last October’s event.
Hamlin finished 42nd, but the result tells nothing of the performance. Engine failure ruined what looked like a top-five run. In that race, he had a Driver Rating of 100.5, an Average Running Position of 20.0 (which is that low because he finished 142 laps off the lead lap), 54 laps led and 32 Fastest Laps Run.
Johnson’s Familiarity With Charlotte Motor Speedway Might Be The Key To His Success
“What’s wrong with Jimmie Johnson (No. 48 Lowe’s Memorial Day Tribute Chevrolet) and the No. 48 team?” has been an oft-asked question as the four-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion has gone winless in seven consecutive starts.
Beyond perhaps unrealistic expectations for perfection, probably nothing.
Johnson has three victories – and 30 bonus points when the NASCAR Chase for the Sprint Cup begins in September.
He’s also ranked fourth in the standings, comfortably among the top 12 who would qualify for the championship-deciding portion of the 2010 season.
Reality is that Johnson arrives at the Coca-Cola 600 in better shape than in each of his past two title-winning campaigns. A year ago, Johnson also stood fourth in the standings, 136 points off the pace but with a single win. In 2008, he also had one victory and was 248 points behind in sixth place. Only in 2007 did Johnson have more wins – four – than this year’s total.
“Jimmie’s House” is a familiar refrain in describing Charlotte Motor Speedway where the Californian has won six times including a pair of season sweeps in 2004-05. He won the Coca-Cola 600 three consecutive times between 2003 and 2005 and is the defending winner of last fall’s event there.
A Coca-Cola 600 win would make him the driver with the most victories at Charlotte Motor Speedway, breaking a tie with Bobby Allison and Darrell Waltrip.
““What it boils down to is that there are good race tracks for certain drivers and certain organizations,”
Johnson said. “We just came out of a stretch where there weren’t some of our better tracks.”
There’s no doubt about which side of the ledger Charlotte appears.
First Time Winners Not Out Of The Ordinary At Charlotte Motor Speedway
You only have to look as far back as May 2009 to find the latest NASCAR Sprint Cup Series competitor to post his first victory in the Coca-Cola 600. David Reutimann (No. 00 Armed Forces Foundation Toyota) battled his way to the front via speed and pit strategy to win a race called after 227 laps due to weather conditions.
Reutimann is the sixth different driver to win for the first time in the 50-year history of NASCAR’s longest race. Legendary David Pearson became the first in 1961 – in the race’s second edition. There was not another first-time winner until 1994 when Jeff Gordon (No. 24 DuPont Stars & Stripes Chevrolet) won his first of 82 races, to date.
Other Coca-Cola 600 first-timers include Bobby Labonte (No. 71 TRG Motorsports Chevrolet) in 1995; Matt Kenseth (No. 17 Jeremiah Weed Ford) in 2000 and Casey Mears (No. 83 Red Bull Toyota) in 2007.
Sunday’s race will be special for Mears on several fronts. A second Coca-Cola 600 certainly would burnish his credentials as he bids for a permanent NASCAR Sprint Cup Series seat.
It also would be an emotional triumph for Mears and the entire Red Bull Racing team as he sits in for his close friend, Brian Vickers, who is out for the season due to health problems.
Mears drove the No. 83 car last weekend at Charlotte finishing 14th in the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race.
The Coca-Cola 600 is memorable in many ways – especially for fans of drivers who made their first start in the race. Twenty-four different drivers, including NASCAR Hall of Fame inductee Dale Earnhardt, drove in NASCAR’s premier series for the first time in 1975. He finished 22nd.
Several other milestones could be reached on Sunday. Mark Martin (No. 5 CARQUEST Auto Parts/GoDaddy.com Chevrolet) continues to pursue his 50th NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Coors Light Pole. Kenseth bids for his 100th topfive finish while Labonte looks for his 200th top-10 finish.
Coca-Cola 600: A Grueling Test
It goes without saying that at 600 miles, Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 is NASCAR’s most grueling test. When the race debuted in 1960 as the World 600, there were many doubters.
Things got even more interesting – and challenging – in 1993 when the race was shifted to a twilight start. The Coca-Cola 600 effectively became more than just an endurance test for driver and machine.
It also challenged the mental capacities of the 43 crew chiefs on pit road since Charlotte Motor Speedway is notorious for how it changes from twilight to darkness, and from heated to cooling asphalt.
Without a doubt, every winning effort is a winning team effort.
“Six hundred miles is a long way, especially when you go from day to night and you’ve got a lot of things that you’ve got to overcome,” said Jeff Gordon, winner of the Coca-Cola 600 in 1994 and 1996. “Cars are not going to be perfect. If you’re perfect during the day, you’ve got to make some big adjustments to be ready to go at night. And to be perfect at night, you’re going to have to be a little off or way off during the day.”
Denny Hamlin agrees. “(There) is just something about that surface that when the sun comes out the oils come up, it just makes it very, very slick,” he said. “When it cools down, the speeds start picking up a second or two.
“It’s pretty amazing to me why it’s so sensitive. I just don’t know (why).”
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series points leader Kevin Harvick (No. 29 Shell/Pennzoil Chevrolet) sees the race requiring a different attitude than one at the traditional distance.
“I think mentally you are kind of programmed to run four or five hundred miles, so the extra 100 miles definitely, you think the race should be over and you have 100 miles to go,” Harvick said.
Kyle Busch, who scored his 70th NASCAR national series victory in Charlotte’s NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race last week, agrees.
“Being the longest race of the year, it is a grueling event, it is a tiresome race, but for me, racing everything I can every weekend, I seem to knock that out of there,” Busch said. “Four hundred laps around here might seem like a long time, but when you’re in the seat and you have a good driving race car, it’s not that long.”
Fast Facts
The Race: Coca-Cola 600
The Date: Sunday, May 30
The Track: Charlotte Motor Speedway (1.5-mile quad-oval)
The Time: 6 p.m. ET
The Distance: 400 laps/600 miles
2009 Polesitter: Ryan Newman
2009 Winner: David Reutimann
| 
|