Nascar

04.14.02
Day Eight
The Checkered Flag

Kurt Busch awoke early on Sunday, Feb. 17, ate a light breakfast, and went from his motor coach to a souvenir trailer on the grounds of Daytona International Speedway. He signed autographs for fans, then visited a hospitality tent. Employees of his sponsor applauded when he spoke of his optimism for the Daytona 500, opening race of the new season.

Busch returned to the garage area, where he greeted his crew and checked on his racecar. Then he attended the drivers' meeting and chapel service. The minister prayed for everyone's safety in the race that had claimed the life of Dale Earnhardt the year before.

It was approaching noon. Busch's girlfriend, Melissa Schaper, prepared the 23-year-old driver a lunch of pasta with marinara sauce, and he returned to his hauler to dress in his racing suit. The command to start engines was less than an hour away, but he was relaxed.

Refreshed by the off-season, Busch had arrived in Florida with the promise that came with a new crew chief and a new crew. Owner Jack Roush had switched Busch's men with Mark Martin's in the hope that changing team chemistry would improve the fortunes of the two drivers.

"I think it's worked out splendidly," Busch said.

But it was more than a new team -- and a new fleet of racecars with new engines that had been built for him -- that left Busch quietly confident on the eve of NASCAR's most famous race. He had spent part of the winter contemplating the lessons of his rookie Cup season, which had started as something of a Cinderella story and ended in heartache.

"Everything just seems more comfortable now," Busch said. "It's easier to go about my business."

KURT BUSCH, at the Daytona 500 in February, starts the 2002 season with a new crew and a new fleet of cars. View today's slideshow View today's gallery: Wide pix The full picture

A string of disappointing finishes in the closing weeks of the 2001 season had left Busch without the carryover provisional points that could have put him in the Daytona 500 regardless of how well he fared in the qualifying heats that preceded the main event. But Busch had fared exceptionally well in Thursday's qualifying race, and he would start the Daytona 500 in 15th place -- the best of Roush's four Cup drivers.

As he zipped his suit, laced his racing shoes, and headed out of his hauler into the sunny afternoon, Busch recalled the previous February, when he finished second to last in his maiden Daytona 500.

"I'm not going to make any obscene types of moves or passes or anything," Busch said. He had an inkling that today might be his day.

The official gave the signal, and Busch left pit road on smoking tires.

"OK, man, I know you can do it," crew chief Ben Leslie said over his radio. "Just be smooth."

"Rolling out. Ten-four, buddy," Busch said.

Busch was about to run the first of two qualifying laps that would determine if he would make that Sunday's NAPA 500, the next-to-last race of the season. Under NASCAR's rules, he had to be at least 36th fastest of the 51 drivers. A string of poor finishes in the fall had depleted his reserve of provisional points, which could have put him in the race regardless of how he fared in qualifying. He had to make the race on time.

Busch had never felt greater pressure.

Finishing a race poorly was depressing, but not making a race was humiliating. Drivers who didn't make races disappointed their owners, crews, and sponsors, and they gave broadcasters and journalists fodder for unflattering stories. The possibility of experiencing such misery had sickened Busch all week, affecting his appetite and sleep. Not even the cheerful support of Melissa, whom he had started dating three years before back home in Las Vegas and with whom he now lived, could move his thoughts far from his fear.

"It's eating at me," Busch had confided before suiting up for his two laps. "I can't wait for the year to be over."

After a warm-up lap, Busch put the pedal down, and his nearly 800-horsepower engine rocketed him into the first turn of the 11/2-mile long speedway. He rounded Turn Two and shot down the backstretch, where drivers can exceed 200 miles an hour. Through Turns Three and Four and onto the frontstretch he went, past the start/finish line, the point of timing.

His first qualifying lap was 29.854 seconds -- 36th fastest, a precarious position with top racers such as Tony Stewart and Dale Earnhardt Jr. yet to drive. Busch needed a better second effort.

MARK MARTIN's crew rushes to repair his car, sponsored by Viagra, at the NAPA 500. A fast and finely tuned pit crew can be as important as horsepower and fuel efficiency. View today's slideshow View today's gallery: Wide pix The full picture

He tore into his next lap with as much gas as he dared -- any more, and his car would slip past the edge of control and wind up a smoking heap against the wall. But it wasn't enough; his car just didn't have it. The lap was only a few hundredths of a second better than the first, advancing Busch just to 35th place. As he walked back to his hauler, the next driver tore off a faster lap.

Looking at the computer in the hauler, Busch saw that he was back on the bubble.

"We're going home, aren't we," he said. "Perfect. Glad the engine stayed together." He was being sarcastic. Engine failures had been a factor in the poor showings that had depleted his reserve of provisionals.

Busch strode through his hauler to his lounge in back, and while he was changing into his street clothes, another driver pushed him off the bubble. For the first time in his racing career, Busch was indeed going home.

Leslie offered words of comfort, but Busch rebuffed him.

"You can find someone else to drive it!" he said, storming out of his hauler. He went to find his girlfriend, and a rental car for the five-hour trip home to Charlotte, N.C.

HAVING MISSED the NAPA 500, Busch had one race left in 2001: the New Hampshire 300, originally slated for Sunday, Sept. 16, but rescheduled to the Friday after Thanksgiving when terrorists struck on Sept. 11. Deciding to condense a weekend of competition into a day, NASCAR had canceled qualifying, and drivers would take the green flag in the order their owners held in the Winston Cup standings when the race had been postponed.

For Busch, the end of the season hadn't come fast enough.

Heading to New Hampshire International Speedway, he continued to compare his rookie season, especially its disappointing end, unfavorably to his quick mastery of every other series in which he had competed. He lamented his failure to win a race -- this was the first year he had not experienced the exhilaration of Victory Lane -- and he believed he had disappointed Roush, who had plucked him from obscurity and sent him to the top of the racing world in near-record time. Two years before, Busch was racing weekends in Nevada, and working the Las Vegas Valley Water District's graveyard shift to help pay his bills.

"I like to be successful," Busch said. "Whether I'm still bolting together water mains for the water district, I want to do it right, and make sure that the people that I'm working with and surrounded by are happy. It seems like I haven't done that."

Looking ahead to 2002, Busch hoped for solid runs week in and week out, which would help him build toward the championship he hoped someday to claim. "I'd like to finish 15th every race to get us some stability. Just consistency all around -- a consistent development toward something better."

Aware of the leading role he would have to assume, Busch had met on the Monday after the NAPA 500 with Roush Racing officials. He conceded that he had behaved inappropriately after failing to qualify at Atlanta, and after apologizing, he committed himself to lifting team morale. Busch planned to treat everyone to dinner and a night out, but he would begin by talking individually to his men about his education during his first Cup season.

As he waited alongside his racecar for the New Hampshire 300 to start, Busch reflected on the year.

"Because of the lessons learned from day one till now, I think I'm much stronger, much wiser," Busch said. "Winston Cup for sure is a lot tougher than I imagined it to be."

But one thing remained unchanged: his love of racing.

"I couldn't do anything else in the world," he said.

Busch finished the New Hampshire 300 in 21st place and closed the season 27th in the point standings. A week later, he joined Jack Roush and his Roush Racing teammates in Manhattan. It was Friday afternoon, Nov. 30, and the Winston Cup banquet would begin in a few hours.

But first, the racers had a mission. They boarded a limousine outside The Waldorf-Astoria hotel and rode to the headquarters of the Uniformed Firefighters Association, whose ranks had been devastated by the attacks of Sept. 11. On behalf of the association's Widows' and Children's Fund, chairman Jerome V. Huntzinger accepted a check from Roush for $89,613, which represented a percentage of Roush Racing souvenir sales since Sept. 11 plus employee contributions that Roush Industries had matched dollar-for-dollar. Also, several Roush licensees had donated thousands of dollars in merchandise to be handed out as Christmas gifts.

Huntzinger thanked his guests for their generosity, and he told the story of how he had overturned his car driving to a firefighter's funeral. He wasn't badly hurt, he said, but he had lost his taste for motoring.

"You guys are amazing," Huntzinger said. "I watch you guys go around and around and I say: `Not for me.' I would rather go into a burning building than get into a racecar." Risk-takers are a varied lot.

The limo returned Roush and his people to The Waldorf-Astoria, where one of champion Jeff Gordon's racecars was parked out front. It was surrounded by a crowd of onlookers, some of whom had never seen such a strange sight on Park Avenue, judging by how they gawked. Inside the magnificent old hotel, NASCAR fans wearing T-shirts and jeans mingled with stylishly dressed people carrying shopping bags from Saks Fifth Avenue. Roush and his drivers were besieged for autographs and pictures as they went to their rooms.

Night fell, and men in tuxedos escorting women in evening gowns began to fill the lobby and move toward the private parties upstairs. The Roush racers visited the Ford Motor Co. suite, where two open bars were in operation, crab legs and shrimp were piled high by a glistening ice sculpture, and a lavish buffet was spread over several tables. At about 8 p.m., after a stop at a larger NASCAR party, everyone entered the grand ballroom.

LIKE THE ACADEMY AWARDS, the Winston Cup ceremony seemed to last forever. Champion Gordon, who had appeared earlier in the week on the Late Show with David Letterman and Today show, thanked each of his many primary and associate sponsors, and also the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco company, longtime sponsor of the Winston Cup series. Teresa Earnhardt spoke as part of a tribute to her late husband, named posthumously as NASCAR's most popular driver.

Jeff Burton ascended the stage to accept a $363,404 bonus check for finishing 10th. In his speech, the driver reminded the audience of the terrible events of Sept. 11 and the lessons that followed.

"In the grand scheme of things," Burton said, "I think we -- and I mean we as a country, not just we in the racing world -- learned that perhaps there are just some things that are more important than leading laps and winning races." And first among them, Burton maintained, was family, as the relatives of the teenage driver Adam Petty, who died practicing for a race in New Hampshire in May 2000, so tragically understood.

"I received some great advice from the Petty family," Burton declared. "They said: `You should never let a chance go by where you don't grab your kids and kiss them and tell them you love them.' My wife, Kim, who is my biggest supporter, has made that our highest priority."

Jack Roush sat, listening.

Far from discouraging him, the season now ending left him itching for February, when the Daytona 500 would kick off the new year. Each of Roush's racers had matured in 2001, and the nagging engine issues that had hurt Busch especially had finally been resolved. With only the ordinary measure of luck, Roush envisioned three and possibly all four of his Cup drivers speaking at the Waldorf next November, and Burton or Martin finally claiming the one title that still eluded him after 14 years of NASCAR racing.

Roush was not scheduled to speak at the banquet, but he was called to the stage when NASCAR Chairman Bill France Jr. named him the surprise winner of the Bill France Award of Excellence, an honor bestowed only every few years. Roush managed a moment of humor in accepting the award.

"You know, 14 years I've been doing this," he said. "I feel a lot like Winston Churchill in one of his speeches -- except mine is in reverse. I feel like never in the history of Winston Cup racing has any car owner done so little with so much for so long. I apologize!"

The crowd roared.

THE FORMAL CEREMONY ended and workers began to prepare the ballroom for KC and The Sunshine Band, which would kick off the champion's party at 1 a.m.

The Roush contingent went back to the Ford suite, where the buffet tables were now laden with desserts. Bottles of Budweiser beer in hand, Jeff Burton and Matt Kenseth shared small talk with wives and friends. Busch and Melissa joined in. Busch still didn't look his age and, dressed in their formal wear, he and 19-year-old Melissa looked like a couple at a high school prom.

Busch's rookie year officially ended that night at the Waldorf. By his own measure, he had faltered in 2001, but by most other reckonings, he had succeeded in his first Winston Cup season.

He finished second in the Rookie of the Year contest to Kevin Harvick, who was being compared to Dale Earnhardt. And he was 27th in the overall point standings -- ahead of more than a dozen veteran drivers, including Kyle Petty and John Andretti, members of two racing dynasties. In his 35 races, Busch recorded one pole, three top-5 finishes, and six top-10 finishes -- more top 10s than a half-dozen drivers who finished ahead of him in the standings. Busch led 160 laps during his 35 races, the 20th best of all the drivers.

"It wasn't a disastrous year; it just wasn't a good year," Roush said. "I had hoped to trip the light fantastic."

It was nearing 12:30 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 17, when the mayor of Daytona Beach took the microphone at Daytona International Speedway. "God bless us all and may God bless America," the mayor said.

The drivers for the Daytona 500 were introduced. Busch waved to the crowd of nearly 200,000 as he crossed the stage, then made his way to his No. 97 racecar, where Melissa kissed him before he climbed in. He tightened his seat and shoulder belts, secured his head-and-neck restraint, and fastened his helmet. The grand marshal gave the command to start engines, pace car driver Jay Leno led the racers on their parade laps, the green flag flew, and the race began.

"All right, boys, they start keeping the points now," Busch radioed to his crew. He meant the standings in the new season now under way.

With Daytona's history of surprises, the race was expected to be unpredictable, and the early going proved that expectation true. Four laps in, Tony Stewart lost his engine; second in the point standings in 2001, he would begin the new season in 43rd place. Eighteen laps after Stewart's day ended, one of Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s tires blew, sending him into the wall. Junior had won the July race at Daytona, and he had been favored again today.

But the Roush racers were running well: lap 117 found Mark Martin in 3rd, Matt Kenseth in 4th, Kurt Busch in 5th, and Jeff Burton in 14th.

"Thanks for all your help," Busch radioed to Kenseth, his drafting partner of the moment who was helping him slice through the field.

"That's what teammates are for," Kenseth radioed back.

The race had reached the three-quarters point when mayhem descended on Daytona once again.

In a dance at 190 miles an hour, Jeff Gordon was battling to pass Kevin Harvick and Harvick was blocking when their vehicles touched, setting off a classic superspeedway chain reaction. Cars spun, smashed into the wall, and ricocheted off each other like balls in a crazed game of pool. Flames burst from beneath one car and thick smoke obscured every driver's vision. No one was seriously injured, but 21 cars were damaged, 13 so severely that they had to go to the garage. Kenseth's was among them.

As he waited for the debris to be cleared, Gordon placed a measure of blame on Busch, who had also been trying to pass.

"It's that damn 97, the wild man," Gordon radioed.

But Busch had not been driving wildly, nor had he caused the wreck, although he, Martin, and Burton had all escaped it. When the track was finally cleaned and racing resumed, Busch was in second, behind Sterling Marlin.

Twelve laps later, Busch passed Marlin for the lead.

"Thirty-five to go, Kurt," radioed his new crew chief, Jimmy Fennig. "Use your head."

Busch's move had angered Marlin, who'd roared back and now was sitting on Busch's bumper. Busch's spotter warned of the imminent danger.

But Busch was cool.

"He hasn't been able to bump me," he radioed. "We're looking good."

Jack Roush was overwhelmed by the unfolding drama; he felt as he had in the closing moments of the 2001 Coca-Cola 600, when Burton was closing in on victory. With conversation impossible over the thunder of the cars, Roush dashed off a few words on a writer's notebook.

I can't breathe, he wrote. Wish at this moment I was someone else watching from a safe distance. My heart's racing, my mouth is dry.

Busch kept the lead until Gordon overtook him 15 laps later. Gordon was at the front of a line of cars that were drafting together, and buffeted by their air, Busch was quickly shuffled back, behind Martin and Burton to the end of the small group of drivers who remained on the lead lap.

With four laps to go, several cars collided.

Rather than finish the Daytona 500 under the yellow caution, an anticlimactic end to any race, NASCAR decided to stage a shootout. The red flag flew, stopping the cars on the track. NASCAR rules prohibit servicing cars under a red flag. But incredibly, as nearly 200,000 spectators and a national television audience watched, Sterling Marlin got out of his car and began pulling back the sheet metal of his damaged right-front quarter panel. For the infraction, Marlin was sent to the end of the line that would start the four-lap shootout. The Daytona 500 always held surprises, but no one could remember any quite as weird as this.

As Busch waited to start the final laps, Fennig advised him. "Sterling's probably going to be mad," the crew chief said, "so he's going to be coming up there like a wild man."

"Let's do it, boys," Busch said, and the race resumed.

With Gordon and Marlin behind him, Busch powered toward the front. Time ran out before he could catch winner Ward Burton. He finished fourth, and his new crew erupted, and the cameramen moved in for close-ups.

"Good job, boys!" Busch radioed. "Wooo! We got a car!"

Jeff Burton wound up in 12th, and Mark Martin in 6th. Martin thanked his new crew and his son, Matt, who had given him a lucky penny before the race. "Maybe," Martin said, "this is the start of good things!"

ROUSH CONGRATULATED his drivers, and Busch started back toward his hauler, where a cluster of reporters was waiting. Busch answered their questions and posed for photographs with his arm around Melissa. Then he went inside to change back into his street clothes.

Busch was outwardly calm, but the unseen energy that had powered him at extreme speed for 500 miles was palpable.

And so was his delight at how the new year had started.

"I just couldn't wait for the season to end last year. And to miss Atlanta, that just made it twice as bad," Busch said. "That's the lowest point in my racing career. For us to come out of here fourth is exhilarating."

Only minutes from the checkered flag, and already Busch's thoughts were on the next race. More than a year had passed since he had visited Victory Lane, and the young man craved to return.

"Winning," he said, "is the ultimate feeling that you get, that you want, that you strive for every Sunday."