In a season that was expected to be dominated by Dale Earnhardt Jr's move to Hendrick Motorsports Kyle Busch, the man replaced by Dale Jr, has been the one taking all the early season headlines.
If elder brother Kurt can be criticised for lacking in overall fan appeal Kyle's hard driving, occasionally hard talking, but most often light-hearted persona stands him out from the crowd. And in the first two race weekends of 2008 his driving has also stood out.
Adopting a ‘have racesuit will drive' approach Busch has participated in all six races held at Daytona and Fontana (Truck, Nationwide and Cup) winning one and finishing no lower than fourth in the others.
Last Saturday's Craftsman Truck win in California was certainly welcomed by the 22 year-old Las Vegas native, who now leads the championship thanks to his second place effort at
Daytona, but he would surely trade that win for a trip to Cup Series victory lane this weekend at his home race in NASCAR's ‘sin city.'
A pair of runner-up finishes to his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Tony Stewart in the Nationwide standings and a pair of fourth place finishes on the Cup side of things means that Busch runs second in the NWS points table and leads the Sprint Cup standings for the first time in his career. But getting to victory lane for his new Cup team is still the main priority.
“The biggest thing we try to do is to get results and get wins,” says the 2002 honours graduate of Las Vegas' Durango High School. “That is the optimum thing you want to do, to get your team to victory lane. We weren't able to capitalise on that in either the Nationwide or Cup Series race at California, but in the Truck series, we were able to. It just means we have a little more work to do. At the same time, you can't really complain coming out of two weekends and all six finishes are in the top-five.”
