Kyle Busch getting smarter by the mile

2227453

If youth is about gaining knowledge and age is about understanding it, Kyle Busch today is still directing his race car around Turn 2 of your nearest speedway. A smoother backstretch awaits, but not before more perspective is acquired.

The journey can seem longer than Talladega.

Petulance can wear on others, but passion for one’s job should never be condemned. Busch’s temperament has at times produced brash statements off the track, but no one can question his aggressive desire to win on it.

The guy is 22 and acts it, like when he won the first Car of Tomorrow race in March and immediately stated on live television, “I can’t stand to drive them. They suck.” NASCAR suits didn’t appreciate the portrayal, which is too bad. The last thing we need is another impartial professional athlete boring us to tears.

Busch is also incredibly gifted, like when he won a Craftsman Truck Series race in Atlanta last month by driving the last 12 or so laps with one hand while he held up an unhooked window net with the other.

He also is fanatical about competing.

Never accuse Busch of meandering to the finish line of a NASCAR season, even one with as many wrecks (literally and figuratively) as he has experienced the past eight months. The Las Vegas native is treating these final weeks of the Chase for the Nextel Cup and his time as the lame duck No. 3 driver of Hendrick Motorsports as if no race this side of your child’s Matchbox contest is too minor.

Which might be the only race Busch isn’t entered in this week.

He will race all three NASCAR events in Phoenix (trucks on Friday night, Busch Series on Saturday and Nextel Cup on Sunday) and jet here Saturday night for the Fall Classic at Las Vegas Motor Speedway’s Bullring, to the place he built his reputation as a driver with immeasurable skill.

He also raced Super Late Models here in July and had the lead after 35 laps before his motor blew. He then signed autographs for more than an hour. Signed anything and everything people handed him.

“I just love racing,” he said before testing here Tuesday. “Our guys love Late Model racing. It’s where we all came from, getting back to the short tracks and roots and being able to support those local tracks across the country and put fans in the grandstands. It’s just what we like to do.”

An ironic setting: At the same time Busch was explaining his reasons for wanting to inhale enough fumes over a three-day period that would topple your average herd of rhinos, his older brother, Kurt, was across the way hosting a charity event for his foundation at the speedway.

It was in May when on the second lap of the final segment of the $1 million Nextel Cup All-Star Challenge at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Concord, N.C., the brothers crashed and ended each other’s night. Kyle blamed Kurt. Kurt blamed Kyle. Think of a couple Baldwin brothers wearing racing suits after an all-nighter.

They apparently didn’t speak for months and still aren’t to the point that weekly words are exchanged, which isn’t some remarkable occurrence. Brothers have fought ever since Cain suggested to Abel the two take a friendly stroll out to the fields.

“When you’re racing against your brother, you take for granted he’s going to give you more room than I got (that night) before we wrecked,” Kyle Busch said. “So you live and learn and go on.”

It’s a viewpoint that defines far more for him than a brotherly spat.

Kyle Busch can’t win the Chase sitting in fourth place with two races remaining, but he’s 158 points behind Clint Bowyer. If he can make up that ground, Hendrick would sweep the top three spots with Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon racing for first and second and Busch third.

How ironic, given Busch lost his ride with the team for next season, was replaced by Dale Earnhardt Jr. and in August signed a three-year deal with Joe Gibbs Racing. It certainly seems to be a better personality fit. His teammates at Gibbs will be Tony Stewart and Denny Hamlin, meaning for the first time in, well, maybe forever, Busch might be the most subdued character in a garage.

“We’ll see about that,” he said. “You know, the Hendrick way was I guess how Jeff and Jimmie are. I was different and didn’t quite fit in as well as they do in their program. But now I’m going the Gibbs way and hopefully will fit into that program and it will all work out. I mean, the best way to do it is just let stuff go and put it behind you.”

Knowledge gained.

Knowledge understood.

Ed Graney’s column is published Sunday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday. He can be reached at (702) 383-4618 or egraney@reviewjournal.com.