Busch in the middle of controversy
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) – Poor Kurt Busch. He tries his best to avoid controversy, yet still ends up smack in the middle of it. When Kevin Harvick publicly mocked him, Busch took the high road and refused to respond. Instead, he did his talking on the track – racing to his fifth win in the past nine races at Bristol Motor Speedway.
But not even that was immune to drama. Busch had to bump ex-teammate Matt Kenseth out of his way with four laps to go Sunday to get the win. The fans booed Busch, Kenseth blasted him and Harvick seized another opportunity to verbally bash him.
It sullied what should have been a crowning moment for Busch, who earned his first victory driving Rusty Wallace’s famed No. 2 car, and proved that a change of teams has done nothing to alter the attitudes about NASCAR’s most polarizing driver.
Busch made his share of mistakes in his first five seasons at NASCAR’s highest level, and he’s as much to blame as anyone for the way his rivals and the fans view him. He’s feuded with Harvick and Jimmy Spencer, who famously punched him in the nose after a 2003 race, publicly complained about mistakes his old Roush Racing team made and insulted NASCAR officials over the radio.
He was branded a whiner by his rivals, who took to calling him any one of a number of derogatory nicknames ranging from “Rubberhead” to “Dumbo.”
No matter what he did, Busch always seemed to be that kid everybody picked on in school.
But if it bothered him, he didn’t let on. He won 14 races in five years and the 2004 Nextel Cup championship.
He left Roush Racing in a bitter split late last season to drive for Roger Penske, a car owner with a history of rehabilitating difficult drivers.
Penske’s influence seemed to be working through the first four races. Although Busch was still a bit quirky, he kept his nose clean and flew under the radar.
That changed last Friday when Harvick, angry over on-track contact the two had five days earlier in Atlanta, once again made Busch his whipping boy. Innocently asked what one perception Harvick would most like to change about HIMSELF, he replied:
“I think I would have whooped Kurt Busch before now,” Harvick said. “Obviously, he forgot about getting punched in his nose last time from Jimmy Spencer.”
“I probably shouldn’t have said that,” Harvick followed.
But he continued.
“I’ll still tell you what I think – I’d still like to whip his (butt). Before the year’s over, he’ll make a fool out of Roger Penske.”
Reporters eager to hear Busch’s response spent the rest of the day waiting in drizzling rain for him to come out of his hauler and add fuel to the fire. Busch smartly refused to be baited and said nothing at all until he was asked again after Sunday’s victory.
“He likes to talk a lot, we like to race,” Busch said. “We turn our attitudes around to make them positive and to put them in place, and that’s to win races.”
Busch got the win, but his bump of Kenseth raised a few eyebrows.
Kenseth was the leader, but couldn’t deftly maneuver out of traffic. It caused him to slow and brought Busch right on his rear bumper. Tired of waiting, Busch shoved him out of the way and skirted past him with four laps to go to earn the win.
Kenseth recovered for a third-place finish, then called the move a “cheap shot.”
“The only thing I know for sure is that if the roles would have been reversed, I absolutely would not have done that to him,” he said.
Busch defended the bump, and even had an unusual ally in second-place finisher Harvick.
“It is just what you have to do in the closing laps,” Harvick said. “I think if the roles had been reversed, it probably would have happened the same way. Just good short-track racing and one guy wins and one guy loses, it ends up with one guy happy and then one guy mad.”
But that didn’t seem to be the popular opinion, which is bizarre considering Bristol’s history.
Jeff Gordon used a similar move on Wallace to win there in 2002, and the late Dale Earnhardt famously wrecked Terry Labonte in 1999 to steal a win.
“I wasn’t trying to wreck him, I just wanted to rattle his cage,” Earnhardt shrugged that night.
The Gordon and Earnhardt bumps are hardly isolated incidents, but no driver has been lambasted the way Busch was for doing essentially the same thing.
Perhaps Busch, based on his past problems and his reputation as arrogant and unlikeable, is held to a higher standard than everyone else. But no matter how sarcastic or smarmy he can be, that’s unfair.
On this particular weekend Busch did everything right, and he’s got the trophy to prove it.