Is Kurt Busch a serious title threat, or is this just one of those times each year he seems to come alive, only to fall back into obscurity?
Busch, of course, believes this season will be different. He points to the fact that his average running position through four 2009 Sprint Cup races is 8.5, tied with Jimmie Johnson for second best behind Jeff Gordon’s 5.8. He’s led 237 laps, easily the most of any driver, and he’s run 94 laps this year (again second only to Gordon) that were the fastest of any driver on that lap.
Those stats don’t lie, and they tell a story about a once-proud racing team, Penske, that is trying to become relevant again. The same goes for Busch, who won 14 races and a Cup title with Roush Racing before leaving for Penske, where he’s won just five times in three-plus seasons and has made just one Chase. He finished just inside the top 20 in the final standings last season.
Busch believes two things have combined to make his team better this year. The first is technical, the second more mental.
“Last year I was looking at our (nose) templates compared to the Chevrolet, Ford and Toyota templates,” Busch said, “and we were off like three-quarters of an inch or five-eighths, and I asked, ‘What’s the reason for this? Why don’t our templates match what the other cars have?’
“If we were running with less than them, we should run better now that we have the new nose sorted out. The new nose provides us with one percent of a downforce shift. We moved the car one percent to the front. It helps the front end to turn. That’s where we had our biggest issues last year.”
Busch also cites owner Roger Penske’s decision to avoid the urge to make wholesale changes.
“We didn’t have much turnover this year,” Busch said. “Roger believed in his people. We had everybody in the shop feeling scared because of the economy and the tough times. Roger assured everybody that we were going to try to pull through this and do it the right way.”
So far, so good, but check back at midseason.
Lindsey Young is a sports writer at the Chattanooga Times Free Press who started work at the Chattanooga News-Free Press 24 years ago. He covers the Northwest Georgia prep beat and NASCAR. Lindsey’s hometown is Ringgold, Ga., and he graduated from Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe High School. He received an associate’s degree from Dalton Junior College (now Dalton State) and a bachelor’s degree in communications from UTC. He has won several writing awards, including two Tennessee Sports ...
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