"We'll just have to race him a little different. If he's not clear or whatever, then maybe the shoe will be on the other foot."
— Greg Biffle after his run in with Kurt Busch at Texas Sunday

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Brash Busch
By Jerry Bonkowski, Yahoo! Sports


FORT WORTH, Texas – In his quest to show fans and fellow competitors his "new" side, Kurt Busch quickly is looking suspiciously like his old self. In four of the first seven Nextel Cup races this season, Busch has been practically a one-man wrecking crew.

He did snow angels after his victory at Bristol and again Saturday at Texas Motor Speedway after winning in his Busch Series debut, but many of his competitors may begin thinking Busch, like the old Elvis Presley song, is the "Devil in Disguise."

The toll thus far this season: Jamie McMurray at Daytona (although McMurray arguably was more at fault for that incident), Matt Kenseth at Bristol, Jeff Burton at Martinsville and Greg Biffle in Sunday's Samsung/RadioShack 500 here at Texas.

That leaves only 37 other series regulars for the 2004 Nextel Cup champ to tangle with – if you don't include Kurt's younger brother Kyle Busch. And with 29 races left on the schedule, Kurt Busch has plenty of time to potentially get most of the rest of his peers ticked off at him.
 
Actually, he also has angered Kevin Harvick, who has criticized Busch the most this season – and Harvick has tangled on-track with Busch only minimally this year.

But something bigger is coming with those two, mark my word.

Take another look at the drivers Busch has tussled with in 2006 and find a common thread – many have ties to his former boss, Jack Roush: ex-teammates Biffle, Burton (even though he's now with Richard Childress Racing) and Kenseth, and the man who succeeded Busch, McMurray.

Coincidence?

One can't help but wonder if Busch has a vendetta going against the man who publicly humiliated him by suspending him for the final two races in '05 after a reckless driving incident in suburban Phoenix.

Maybe Busch is silently saying to Roush the same thing he told the cop in Phoenix: "Don't you know who I am?"

Or is it more like, "Hey, Mr. Cat in the Hat. Remember me?"

I'll give Busch the benefit of the doubt that he's not intentionally wrecking any drivers, whether they're in the Roush camp or not.

And on Sunday, Busch took a decidedly Jimmie Johnson-like analysis of his incident with Biffle. Instead of accepting blame, Busch said he thought Biffle might have suddenly lost a cylinder heading into Turn 3, leaving Busch with nowhere to go but into the rear end of Biffle's Ford. Busch made contact with Biffle, spinning him into the wall and out of the race.

"I don't know what [Biffle] was doing," Busch said. "I was a lapped car trying to get out of the way. He had trouble passing [Ken Schrader] and checked up down the straightaway. I tried not to get into him [but] had nowhere to go.… I don't know why he couldn't pass the 21. I was just trying to get out of the way."

But Biffle did not see it that way, and he definitely did not drop a cylinder. In his mind, Busch intentionally rammed him – or at least made no effort to give him room.

"When you're the guy that all you have to do is lift on the gas pedal a little bit and elect not to and run into the car in front of you on the straightaway, that's pretty unforgivable, I would have to say," Biffle said.

Busch wound up victimizing himself in the Biffle tangle, too. An oil line was ruptured by the resulting damage, knocking Busch out of the race for nearly 50 laps of repairs. Biffle, the defending race winner, ended up 42nd while Busch finished 34th.

Precedent

Busch isn't doing anything that Dale Earnhardt didn't do during his Cup career. Whether you liked him or not, there's no denying Earnhardt was the most-feared driver on the race track because of his intimidating driving style.

Get in his way and Earnhardt quickly imparted a very clear message to you, one that typically needed to be said just once or twice at the most. And if his words or hand signals didn't catch your attention, his chrome horn usually did the trick.

Busch is a longtime Earnhardt admirer and has patterned his own style after the Man in Black. Just like The Intimidator did, Busch smiles and revels in the fact that he's one of the most despised men in NASCAR – and in light of his run-ins this season, that level of despicableness likely has gone up a few notches.

But Busch isn't Earnhardt, not by the measures of talent, skill or personality – and he never will be. And that's where Busch needs to take pause.

For all intents and purposes, Earnhardt was a loner on the Cup level, doing things his way, opposition be damned. But one thing The Intimidator never lacked on the race track was friends.

When he needed a drafting partner or wanted another driver to block someone behind him, fellow drivers quickly came to the fore, as if excitedly saying, "pick me, Mr. Earnhardt, pick me."

But Busch's manner this season is not winning him more friends. What's worse, all four drivers he has nailed have been good friends of his – well, maybe "used to be" is be a more accurate description.

"You've got to have a little bit of respect for the other drivers you're racing with and Kurt hasn't shown any respect, or that [incident Sunday] surely wasn't showing respect," Biffle said.

Biffle long has been one of Busch's staunchest supporters, but that friendship suddenly may be over – or at the very least damaged – as a result of Sunday.

"We'll just have to race him a little different," Biffle said. "If he's not clear or whatever, then maybe the shoe will be on the other foot."

You know things are bad when Biffle's longtime girlfriend, Nicole Lunders, storms over to Busch's pit box after the wreck and chews out Busch's fiancée, Eva Bryan.

If it has been just a coincidence that Busch has wrecked his former teammates, so be it. But if he intentionally has done so, he has to remember that if he maintains his current pace, he's risking the loss of pretty much every friend he has made on the race track – ex-teammates included.

To have success in Nextel Cup, the key is to have as many friends as possible – not to alienate them.


Veteran motorsports writer Jerry Bonkowski is a Yahoo! Sports NASCAR columnist.

Revenge on Roush?
Kurt Busch appears to have it out for former team
By Lewis Franck|Sports Illustrated


Kurt Busch won't be invited to any Roush Racing reunions this year -- or probably ever. If the way he ended his contract with Jack Roush last year wasn't acrimonious enough, in the last two races he's crashed with two of his former teammates, Matt Kenseth and, on Sunday, Greg Biffle.

It was easier to understand when, two weeks ago at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Busch was involved with Kevin Harvick. They are both hard chargers, from different teams, who won't back down. Last week in Bristol, Busch moved Kenseth out of the way in the closing laps for his first victory of the year. Veterans will tell you that it's OK -- on a short track -- to do the bump-and-run to get the win in the closings laps. Still, you won't make or keep friends that way.

Yesterday was a different story. Busch was a lap down. On lap 82 Biffle's Ford Fusion was sent, by Busch's Dodge, into the turn 3 wall at Texas Motor Speedway with such force that the race was red-flagged for 10 minutes of repairs.

In a press release Busch said it was an unavoidable accident: "I don't know what he [Biffle] was doing. I was a lapped car trying to get out of the way. He had trouble passing the 21 [Ken Schrader], and he checked up down the straightaway. I tried not to get into him. I had nowhere to go. He had a fast race car. He caught me from like 20 car lengths back in like a lap, so I don't know why he couldn't pass the 21. I was just trying to get out of the way."

Of course there are two sides to the story, and the two guys Busch hit used to count among the few who gave Busch support. Now that's all gone.

Disagreeing with his former teammate, Biffle said, "The thing about it is you've got to have a little bit of respect for the other drivers you're racing with, and Kurt hasn't shown respect or that surely wasn't showing respect."

Biffle, who had led 49 laps and had a dominating win in last year's Texas spring race, said, "He just ran into the back of me and turned me into the fence. I just watched the video and it's exactly what I thought happened.... When all you have to do is lift on the gas pedal and elect not to run into the car in front of you on the straightaway, that's pretty unforgivable. If he slid up in the corner and caught me or something by accident, or couldn't react quickly enough, that would be something. But he had plenty of time to react. He consciously thought about it before he turned us."

Just when you thought that matters couldn't get more heated -- in a moment reminiscent of Kurt Busch's mid-race walk over to Scott Rigg's pits in New Hampshire last fall -- Biffle's lady friend went over to confront Busch's fiancée at the Miller Lite pit box. Fortunately, neither one of the women has a Jimmy Spencer sense of humor and no punches were thrown -- like in Spencer and Busch's confrontation a few years ago.

About the only two Roush drivers Busch hasn't run into this year are Carl Edwards and Mark Martin. Edwards, who is off to a slow start this year, hasn't yet been in line of fire, and Martin is too well admired and respected to have a run-in with Busch. There is no denying that Kurt Busch is a talented driver; his 2004 run to NASCAR Nextel Cup is proof of that. But now there are these on-track incidents to consider. In the end it's more likely that I'd get an invitation from Roush Racing before Kurt would.

Texas
By B. Duane Cross, NASCAR.COM


Random thoughts from the Lone Star State ...

• Kasey Kahne could give a clinic on closing the deal (sign-up sheets are over there, Ryan Newman). In eight starts from the pole, Kahne has three wins, a second-place finish, a third and a sixth-place average finish.

• For the second time in three weeks Tony Stewart led the most laps (99) but didn't take home the checkered flag. Smoke has led the most laps in three consecutive races, the longest streak since he also led three in a row in Races 15-17 -- Michigan, Sonoma and Daytona -- last year.

• Nicole Lunders and Eva Bryan -- thanks for perpetuating the image that NASCAR is rasslin' on wheels. I'm all for pretty faces, but maybe it's time to dial back the pit access to the folks whose job requires them to be in the middle of the action.

• Congrats to Denny Hamlin, whose fourth-place finish was a career-best (and tops for a rookie this season). He has two top-10s at Texas, including a seventh-place run on Nov. 6, 2005. ... In 14 Cup starts, Hamlin now has five-top-10 finishes and eight top-15s.

• Martin Truex Jr. also posted a top-10 finish -- eighth -- for the second time in his 16-race career. His other: a seventh on May 29, 2005, at Charlotte.

• Bobby Labonte's 10th-place finish was his second top-10 in the past three races. The last time the No. 43 car had two top-10 finishes through the first seven races was 2001, when John Andretti also had two -- a sixth at Darlington (Race 5) and a second-place finish at Bristol (Race 6).

• Rookie David Stremme has failed to finish on the lead lap in six consecutive races. In seven starts he has completed 2,107 of 2,383 laps (88.4 percent) and has not led a lap. He has one DNF (Martinsville).

• Kevin Harvick has reeled off three consecutive top-10 finishes. It's his best run since posting five in a row between Dover and Martinsville in Fall 2003. Harvick is ninth in points, his best showing since June 19, 2005, after Michigan.

• Nice run for Scott Riggs on Sunday. After the disappointment of not making the field for the season opener at Daytona, he has rebounded nicely: three top-15s and 28th in points -- ahead of eight drivers who have started all seven races.

• Did we mention that Kahne's three wins have come in a Dodge Charger -- you know, the car that replaced the Intrepid, which some teams held on to for dear life in trying to get a better finish to prove the Charger wasn't racy?

Say Anything
 
"We were behind and we just made a last-ditch effort and put two tires on the left side. It was a good call and it would have worked out good. If we could have had one caution between there we would have been sitting pretty, but unfortunately we kept getting looser and looser. We just got loose over there [off Turn 2 on last lap]. I got sideways, but Kyle [Busch] pretty much drove through me, so what goes around comes around."
-- Clint Bowyer, whose potential top-10 run ended with a last-lap crash and a 19th-place finish

Figuratively Speaking

3 -- Victories for Dodge this season; the manufacturer had only three all of 2005. The last year Dodge won this many in the first seven races: 2002, when Ward Burton and Sterling Marlin (2) combined to win three of the first five races. Dodge finished that year with seven wins -- two each by Burton, Marlin and Bill Elliott and one by Jamie McMurray.

• What a difference a year makes: Matt Kenseth's second-place finish at Texas was his fourth top-10 in eight races at the track, and his fourth top-five this season. He's now second in points; one year ago he was 21st after seven races.

• What a difference a year makes, Part Deux: Greg Biffle was 42nd on Sunday and now has finished 31st or worse in four of the seven races this season. He dropped from 18th to 23rd in points. A year ago he was second in the point standings.

• Denny Hamlin (fourth) and Martin Truex Jr. (eighth) both finished in the top 10, marking the first time two rookies finished in the top 10 since Phoenix on Nov. 13, 2005, when Kyle Busch won the race and Travis Kvapil finished 10th.

Up Next

Phoenix International Raceway | 8 p.m. ET, April 22 | FOX

• No driver has ever won from the pole in the 19 Cup races at Phoenix, and four of the past five races have been won from starting positions outside the top 10.
  
• Roush Racing has won five times at PIR, and there have been 16 different race winners. Only Davey Allison, Jeff Burton and Dale Earnhardt Jr. have two wins.

• Ford has won 12 of the 19 races at Phoenix, the most of all manufacturers. However, Chevrolet has won three of the past four races. Dodge has never won at Phoenix.

Mailbag
 
Sorry folks, the mailman is on vacation -- and trying to recoup from daughter Reily's first birthday party. Sad thing is she outlasted the grown-ups and woke up with the chickens this a.m. ready for more. Maybe I'll wake up before my birthday on Wednesday.

Fantasy Perspective

• Jimmie Johnson, Kasey Kahne and Mark Martin are the only drivers with five top-10 finishes in the first seven races, and Martin is the only driver with a top-15 finish in each race.

• Tony Stewart is the only driver to lead at least one lap in all seven races this season. He has earned 50 lap-leader bonus points -- 35 more than points leader Jimmie Johnson (15).

• Kurt Busch has four consecutive top-10 finishes at Phoenix, the longest current streak, while Mark Martin's 13 top-10s in 19 races is the most of all drivers who've started at PIR.

The opinions expressed are solely of the writer.