Fun is where you find it – again – Busch says
By Brant James - ThatsRacin.com Contributor
Friday, Mar. 12, 2010
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – A very new experience feels awfully familiar to Kurt Busch.
Standing under a tent and over a 1,400-horsepower Pro Stock motor on a rainy Friday afternoon at Gainesville Raceway, the 2004 Sprint Cup champion was talking shop with two generations of racers. He was asking questions and taking pointers on how not to embarrass himself with his new very public hobby of NHRA drag racing.
Busch had spent 10 minutes hunched inside Allen Johnson’s blue dragster soaking in the information, becoming envious of the power advantage it had on the Super Gas Dodge he would attempt to qualify and race sometime this weekend.
Now he, Johnson, and Johnson’s father and engine-builder, Roy, talked stock cars and dragsters. How the elder Johnson was a two-time Sportsman national champion and raced some Late Models in the 1960s. How the younger Johnson raced a few Legends cars, like Busch had when he was first entering motorsports.
Busch doesn’t get those kind of moments in 36 weeks a year as a Sprint Cup driver. His race car this weekend is a modified street car – “that we’re going to have some fun with,” he said – so much so that he plans on registering it to drive – street-legal – in North Carolina.
His crew chief, Jesse Walker, was the best man at his wedding and a drag racing enthusiast and crewman.
“Being there with the guys, the camaraderie, it reminds me of the beginning of time, when I first started out racing,” Busch said, “trailering down here.
"We’ve got the long trailer. Yeah, I’ve got the motor home and we’re staying there; nice, but it’s just the fun atmosphere of the volunteer crew members helping me out.
"At the end of the day we all go to dinner together and have fun and make fun of everybody. The whole experience reminds me exactly of when I started out racing.
"I ran into Tony Schumacher last night at the bar. When’s the last time I had a (beer) on a race weekend? Never. It reminds me of old Southwest Tour racing with my buddies.”
Allen Johnson, a Greenville, Tenn., resident who patrols the pits at Bristol Motor Speedway each time NASCAR visits and claims Tony Stewart and Dave Blaney as friends, said Busch’s association with drag racing “is a good pump in the arm for us.”
Johnson, who shares a sponsor with Busch this weekend, was pleasantly surprised with Busch’s enthusiasm during a dinner at the Gainesville Ale House on Thursday.
Busch admitted his reaction time still needs some improving.
“We sat and had a cold beer and talked about racing,” Johnson said.
“He asked me more questions than I did him. He was like, “I need help. How do you do this?” He was cool. Seemed like a really down-to-earth guy.
"I know a couple of guys over there, and they’re just like us, normal guys.”
Busch’s normal-guy project has included changing valve springs and formulating the modifications – fuel injection, turbo, transmission – to the car with Walker. Inclement weather could move qualifying back as far as Monday before he finally gets to have some fun, however.
So far he’s only made about a dozen practice runs at Rockingham Dragway in preparation for his NHRA debut.
Busch plans to run the car in other events, including jetting back from the Talladega race weekend to make some passes for the taping of a “Pinks: All Out” episode at ZMax Dragway in Charlotte.
Busch hopes to face Sprint Cup driver Greg Biffle, crew chiefs Jimmy Elledge and Jimmy Fennig (who won the 2004 Sprint Cup title with Busch) and outgoing Sprint Cup series director John Darby at an upcoming “NASCAR night” at the dragway. And he expects to rule the event.
Busch couldn’t rule during a live interview from the strip on Friday with legendary drag racer/yapper John Force. But he held his own, even when Force quipped that the married Busch was “single this weekend.”
That should count for something.
Force vetted Busch to a large grandstand of fans over the track PA with “he’s just a good old boy, talking about his hot rods. I like that.”
So does Busch.
Fun is where you find it – again – Busch says | www.thatsracin.com