4/3/04…….. Matt Kenseth gave the Busch Series drivers a lesson Saturday, showing them that winning a championship wasn’t any fluke. It takes patience, understanding of the racing strategies, and being in the right place at the right time. As it turned out, the latter was what won the race for Kenseth, his first Busch Series win of the 2004 season.

It appeared that Bobby Hamilton Jr. was going to be bragging again on stomping the Cup drivers into the dirt, but it didn’t happen that way. Hamilton is indeed a class act, but he couldn’t hold Kenseth off. Just as Kenseth passed Hamilton, the race broke into mayhem with a collision on the front stretch. NASCAR officials quickly brought out the red flag in an attempt to insure a green flag finish.

As it turned out, the white flag lap brought out another caution and the race ended under the yellow flag regardless of the sanctioning bodies efforts. It didn’t matter to race leader Kenseth though, as he roared over the finish line for the win.

Following Kenseth across the finish line were rookie Kyle Busch, Robby Gordon, Johnny Benson, Jason Leffler, Bobby Hamilton Jr., Joe Nemechek, David Green, Jeff Burton, and Martin Truex Jr. The top ten starters and how they finished:

1. Kyle Busch* -- No. 5 Chevy – finished 2nd
2. Greg Biffle -- No. 60 Ford – finished 34th
3. David Green -- No. 37 Pontiac – finished 8th
4. Joe Nemechek -- No. 87 Chevy – finished 7th
5. Martin Truex Jr. -- No. 8 Chevy – finished 10th
6. Clint Boyer*-- No. 21 Chevy – finished 36th
7. Johnny Sauter -- No. 27 Pontiac – finished 16th
8. Kasey Kahne -- No. 38 Dodge – finished 32nd
9. Bobby Labonte -- No. 29 Chevy – finished 11th
10. Bobby Hamilton Jr. -- No. 25 Ford – finished 6th

As the much touted era of the “Young Guns” continues, 18 year-old Kyle Busch came in with a top five runner-up finish, his second top five in a row. The younger brother of “take no prisoners” Cup driver Kurt Busch, Kyle has scored a seventh, third, and second place finish along with two pole starting positions in the first six starts of the season in the No 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet.

Another young gun in the picture who has a better record that Busch is Martin Truex Jr. Everyone knows that Truex drives the No. 8 Chance II Motorsports Taco Bell Chevy owned by Dale Earnhardt Jr. and his stepmother Teresa. The young New Jersey native has a second, fourth, first, and tenth place finish in his first six races, with one pole and two other top five starting positions.

A pleasant surprise this season is Robby Gordon in the No. 55 Fruit of the Loom Chevrolet. As most of you know, I’m certainly not an advocate of Cup drivers in the Busch Series, but with me, Gordon is a different story. He owns his own cars, built in his Robby Gordon Motorsports shop, along with a couple of cars being built there for him to drive in the upcoming Indy 500.

There were a lot of changes in the driver’s point’s standings. First of all, Kevin Harvick didn’t compete in the Texas event, and as a result, he lost the top spot to David Green. Kyle Busch’s second place finish moved him up one spot to second listed with a -17. Cup driver Michael Waltrip with his highly publicized No. 99 Aaron’s Dream Machine moved up one spot to third listed with a -46. Rookie Kyle Busch moved up four spots to fourth with a -74 with Cup driver Robby Gordon moving up two spots to round out the top five with a -89. Jason Keller remains at sixth with a -91 while Kevin Harvick ended up in seventh position listed with a -101 after dropping six spots. Bobby Hamilton Jr. moved up three spots to eighth listed with a -113 followed by Johnny Sauter who moved up one spot to be listed in ninth with a -148. Greg Biffle’s engine failure dropped him five spots to round out the top ten with a -152.

Next week the Busch Series travels to the Nashville Superspeedway in Nashville, Tennessee for the Pepsi 300. The event will be televised by the FX channel on Saturday, April 10th at 3:30 p.m. eastern. Qualifying for the event will be televised by the SPEED channel on Friday, April 9th at 4:30 p.m. eastern.

Last season’s winner of the Nashville Pepsi 300 was David Green. He was followed across the finish line by Johnny Sauter, Ashton Lewis Jr., Mike Bliss, David Reutimann, Stanton Barrett, rookie David Stremme, rookie Chad Blount, Brian Vickers, and Bobby Hamilton Jr.

Randy LaJoie won the Bud pole award with a speed of 163.324 miles per hour. There were seven caution periods for a total of 35 laps out of the 225 laps on the 1.33 mile oval.

I assume that there will be very few cup drivers in next week’s event, except for maybe the regular competitors that own their own teams and race every week.

4/11/04…….. A lucky break fell Michael Waltrip’s way in the waning laps of the Easter weekend Busch Series race at Nashville Superspeedway. At least, that’s the way the NASCAR officials saw it. Others saw it differently, like Johnny Sauter for instance, who contends that Waltrip passed him after the caution flag came out. The caution flag is supposed to freeze the field, but apparently, according to Sauter, it only freezes it for certain people.

I'm sure that by now everyone who gives a flip is aware that two rookies were leading the race and vying for the number one spot with two laps to go when everything went out of kilter. Kyle Busch passed Clint Bowyer for the lead on the outside and soon afterward Bowyer tapped the back of Busch's car sending both into a spin that collected Johnny Benson and Robby Gordon. While the cars were spinning, Waltrip hugged the wall and made it around them through the cloud of smoke, ending up crossing the finish line first.

Sauter is very irate with Waltrip for cheating and with NASCAR for backing Waltrip's questionable move. It appeared that Waltrip used the tire smoke from spinout of the four lead cars to mask his pass. We've had Earnhardt's "pass in the grass" to talk about for years, now we have Waltrip's "pass in the smoke." Sauter stated in a post race interview that it appeared NASCAR was doing everything it could to restrict his victories and driver’s points.

Not to be out done for making an idiot out of himself in post race interviews, Waltrip had his share of asinine comments to make. Referring to an altercation with Ron Hornaday where Waltrip hit Hornaday and spun him out, Waltrip said, "It's no secret that it's okay to spin people out nowadays. We saw it this season a lot lately. Only problem with that tactic is it generally doesn't work at a place like Nashville or a big track." Referring to the pass on Johnny Sauter, Waltrip said that drivers must maintain a reasonable speed back to the line, and that Sauter got caught up in the wreck and didn't maintain a reasonable speed. He also alluded that Sauter needs learn the rules.

As the checkered flag waved under caution there were only eight cars on the lead lap. Following Waltrip across the finish line were Johnny Sauter, Robby Gordon, rookies Clint Boyer and Kyle Busch, Kasey Kahne, Johnny Benson, and Mike Bliss. Jason Leffler finished ninth, one lap down, followed by David Green finishing tenth, two laps down. The top ten starters and how they finished:

1. Martin Truex Jr. -- No. 8 Chevy – finished 23rd
2. Johnny Benson -- No. 1 Dodge – finished 7th
3. Bobby Hamilton Jr. -- No. 25 Ford – finished 27th
4. Jason Keller -- No. 22 Ford -- finished 13th
5. Johnny Sauter -- No. 27 Pontiac – finished 2nd
6. Kasey Kahne -- No. 38 Dodge – finished 6th
7. Stacy Compton -- No. 59 Ford – finished 14th
8. Jason Leffler -- No. 00 Chevy – finished 9th
9. Mike Bliss-- No. 20 Chevy – finished 8th
10. David Green -- No. 37 Chevy – finished 10th

Waltrip's pass in the smoke not only gave him the victory but it moved him up two spots in Busch Series driver's points to take the lead over David Green by a mere eight points. That little lead won't last long for Waltrip, he's had his lucky break for the season! Rookie Kyle Busch moved up one spot to third and is now listed with a -56. Robbie Gordon moved up one spot to fourth listed with a -61, followed by Martin Truex Jr. who dropped three spots to round out the top five with a -65. Jason Keller remains in sixth with a -109 followed by Johnny Sauter who moved up two spots to seventh listed with a -120. Bobby Hamilton Jr. remains in eighth with a -163 followed by veteran Tim Fedewa who moved up two spots to ninth listed with a -171. Johnny Benson moved up five spots to round out the top ten with a -204. Benson was the biggest mover in the top 25 with Greg Biffle being the biggest loser dropping five points down to 15th.

Next week the Busch Series has a week off. They will join the Cup Series at Talladega, Alabama on the following weekend.

4/25/04…….. The BIG ONE at the Busch Series Talladega race ended up being more of a MINI big one than anything else. As per usual, when there's a wreck that involves at least two competitors, the number one question on everyone's lips is, "Who's fault was it?" Blame has to be administered, fault has to be assigned to a competitor, regardless if it was just one of those racing deals or not.

The ten car pileup at Talladega in Saturday's Busch event wasn't just one of those racing deals, by any means. Mike Wallace, who has been a field filler and driver of "one of the slow cars" for most of his racing career, simply tried to squeeze his racecar into a place where there wasn't any room for it to go. The fact that he made contact to the left and right before the wreck pretty much tells the story. Somebody had to give when the stacked cars of Mike Wallace, Greg Biffle, Kasey Kahne, and Clint Bowers approached the slower car of Jimmy Kitchens who was riding along the bottom of the track. Maybe, just maybe, if Kitchens had been completely down on the yellow line the stack might have made it around him, but I have my doubts.

There's no law of the track mandating that Kitchens, or any other slower car has to ride the yellow line, all he has to do is to be either up high or down low to let the faster cars get around him. He was doing that, the faster cars were in a stack, and that wasn't the fault of Jimmy Kitchens at all. Mike Wallace was jumpy, he was losing it to begin with, and his escaping nerve wouldn't let him hold his line. Some guys just don't have what it takes to skillfully handle a race car, and over the years we've seen time and time again that Mike Wallace is one of them.

The big surprise at Talladega was the domination of DEI/Chance II Motorsports, NOT……. Who'd have thought? At any rate, chalk up another DEI rout at a restrictor plate venue. Dale Jr. handily pushed his driver, Martin Truex Jr., to his second victory of the season and the second victory of his career in the Alabama sunshine.

The finishing grid looked a lot like the starting grid with he Chevrolets dominating the majority of the top ten. I assume that the Ford teams will be voicing strong objectives to this fact of life, but it may very well fall on deaf ears at this stage of the game. It has become evident that the sanctioning body is far more interested in the show than fair play. If you want to make a good showing at restrictor plate venues, drive a Chevrolet, it's as simple as that!

Following Truex and Earnhardt across the finish line were the Chevrolets of Ron Hornaday Jr., rookie Kyle Busch, Jason Leffler, Robby Gordon, Kenny Wallace, Michael Waltrip, David Green, and Jason Keller driving the only Ford in the top ten. Apparently the aero package that the Busch cars are using isn't very compatible with the Ford model. The series is using the same package this season that was tried out and abandon by the Cup Series in 2001. The package didn't work for the higher horsepower Cup cars, it made them too squirrelly and nearly impossible to control as they were buffeted too much by the wind in close quarter side by side racing that is prevalent at restrictor plate venues. The t ten starters and how they finished:

1. Clint Bowyer*-- No. 21 Chevy – finished 22nd
2. Ron Hornaday -- No. 2 Chevy – finished 3rd
3. Martin Truex Jr. -- No. 8 Chevy – finished 1st
4. Robby Gordon -- No. 55 Chevy -- finished 6th
5. Mike Bliss -- No. -20 Chevy – finished 39th
6. Jason Leffler -- No. 00 Chevy – finished 5th
7. Mark Green\Robert Pressley -- No. 47 Ford – finished 13th
8. Paul Menard* -- No. 33 Chevy – finished 16th
9. Kasey Kahne -- No. 38 Dodge – finished 37th
10. Dale Earnhardt Jr. -- No. 81 Chevy – finished 2nd

Cup driver Michael Waltrip is barely hanging onto the Busch Series driver's point's lead over second place regular Busch Series driver David Green by a mere 17 points. If Waltrip thinks he's a shoo-in for the championship, he's got a rude awakening coming up sooner than later. Word around the rumor mill has it that Waltrip is considering running the entire Busch Series schedule because he thinks he's got a substantial shot at the brass ring.

Martin Truex Jr.'s second win of the season moved him up one spot to third with a -27 followed by rookie Kyle Busch who dropped one spot to fourth with a -43. Robby Gordon's solid performance allowed him to remain in fifth with a -58 while Jason Keller remains in sixth, quite a ways back with a -122. Seventh and eighth place also didn't register any change with Johnny Sauter and Bobby Hamilton Jr. registering a --192 and a -219 respectively. Ron Hornaday Jr. moved up four spots to round out the top ten with a -226.

Next week the Busch Series travels to the California Speedway for the Pit-Shop.com 300. The event will be televised by the FOX network at 4 p.m. on Saturday, May 1st. Qualifying for the event will be televised by the SPEED channel on Friday, Aril 30th at 4 p.m. All times for events are eastern daylight savings time.

Last season's winner of the event was Cup driver Matt Kenseth. He was followed across the finish line by Michael Waltrip, Kevin Harvick, Kasey Kahne, Todd Bodine, Jamie McMurray, Jason Keller, Shane Hmiel, David Green, and Ron Hornaday Jr.

Kevin Harvick won the Bud pole Award in the No. 21 Payday sponsored Richard Childress racing's Chevrolet with a speed of 183.941 miles per hour. There were six caution periods for a total of 30 laps out of the 150 lap event on the 2 mile D shaped oval.