Kurt Busch ready to match his brother Kyle with victory at their hometown track
Kurt Busch will start from the pole today at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. // Sam Cranston, NASCAR Illustrated
LAS VEGAS – Kurt Busch might have the championship that his younger brother, Kyle, desperately wants, but Kyle has one thing that Kurt doesn’t have.
A win at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, their hometown track.
This could be the weekend that changes all of that. Kurt Busch has his Penske Racing car on the pole for the Shelby American, and he has Kyle’s former crew chief, Steve Addington, on his pit box. But it’s also hard to count out Kyle, the defending champion of the 400-mile event.
“If I’m a little ornery, it’s because Kyle’s won here and I haven’t, but I’m pushing hard to go get it,” Kurt Busch says.
Kyle won the pole at the 1.5-mile oval last year but actually started from the back after an engine change. So he knows how to work his way through the field.
“It was cool,” the 24-year-old Joe Gibbs Racing driver said about the win last year. “To go out there and to run a smooth race, and to have a shot at winning the race at the end, is what it’s all about. I watched Vegas being built from the ground up, and I remember when it wasn’t anything but a gleam in [track founder] Richie Clyne’s eye – all those guys who made that place happen.
“It was [my] biggest [win] so far. It was awesome, just the feeling of a lifetime. I told everyone that it would be just like another race, but it really meant a lot more than that when I got to victory lane.”
Kurt Busch has no plans of having to work his way through the field. He has no plans on falling back and making it a spectacular show. He’ll be just fine with running up front all day and celebrating with friends and family.
“It’s something that you can’t count your chickens before they hatch, but this would be a special win,” says the 31-year-old Kurt Busch, whose average finish at LVMS is 20th in nine starts. “It’s hard to talk about it and play what-if.
“I’d like to go out there and do it and bring it home for my group, my team.”
While Kurt Busch has won a Cup championship and 20 Cup races, he is still missing wins at notable tracks like Daytona, Darlington and Indianapolis and, for him, Las Vegas.
“It’s the people that make it special to me,” Kurt Busch says. “You always remember the people that helped you to get to where you’ve gotten in racing.
“To see them back in Vegas is awesome. Indy’s big. Daytona is huge. But Vegas ranks as my No. 2.”
Although it’s just a 400-mile race, the high speeds at Las Vegas – Kurt ran at more than 188 mph to capture the pole – make it a tough race.
“We just hope that we find the right combination to make our tires last, our handling right and to be there when it counts,” Kurt Busch says. “This track last year, the pace was so quick that a lot of guys had engine trouble over revving the engines.
“Gear rules have been changed so that should be taken care of.”
For Kyle, his main challenge this weekend has been with the handling of his car, especially the bumps in Turn 1.
“The bumps in [Turn] 1 seem to be throwing everybody for a loop,” Kyle Busch says. “Ours isn’t that bad. We’ll see if we can get it going. … “We’d rather win the race [than the pole]. The big prize is Sunday.”
Kyle is working with crew chief Dave Rogers, who replaced Addington with three races left in 2009.
After getting released as Kyle’s crew chief, Addington joined Kurt’s team in the offseason. The move has only confirmed what the Busch brothers expected – both Kurt and Kyle like similar setups.
“We don’t have the full package that Addington had at Gibbs – he just has his memory and some of the smaller items,” Kurt says. “But anytime we plug those numbers in, Kyle’s style is very close to mine and we’re learning from that at certain race tracks that maybe I wasn’t good on that I can be better at.”
And while his understanding of what worked for Kyle at Las Vegas last year is probably helpful, it might even be more helpful that Addington understands just how important a weekend this is for Kurt.
“I won [the pole] last year with Kyle and now we’re on the pole here with Kurt,” Addington says. “Maybe we’ll get the same results that we did last year [with Kyle].
“To get Kurt a win here in Las Vegas would be incredible. … We’ve come a long way and Sunday could be really special.”
