One last article re: Busch written just prior to the last race. This article articulates the pro and con about him here, so I'm posting this for those who love him and those that don't.
Ed Hardin: Kurt Busch, the champ no one wants
11-21-04
HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- People don't like the way Kurt Busch looks, and they don't like the way he talks and they don't like the way he acts. Otherwise, they like him just fine.
His fellow drivers basically hate him. His own teammates seem to only tolerate him. And even NASCAR itself has a hard time dealing with him.
So by the end of the day today, a lot of people are going to be really upset if the first Nextel Cup champion is not Jeff Gordon or Jimmie Johnson or Mark Martin or Dale Earnhardt Jr. A lot of people are going to be sickened by the thought of Kurt Busch winning the title.
He's a marketing nightmare, a pointy headed 26-year-old kid with big ears. He doesn't smile very much, and when he does it looks fake. He talks like a 26-year-old kid who reads a thesaurus in his spare time. He uses words like "circumferences," which is really not a word at all, and "eradicate," which is an excellent word for anyone on earth except a race-car driver.
So when Kurt Busch wins the championship today, and a lot of people are certain he's going to do just that, the new face of racing will be the one face no one in racing can stand to look at.
There's an emerging opinion that Busch will not see the checkered flag today, that one of his many enemies on and off the track will conspire to see that he doesn't win the title. It's probably a good thing that Jimmy Spencer's not in the race, but it can't be a good thing for Busch that Robby Gordon is. It's probably a good thing that Bill France Jr. is no longer around the track very much, but it can't be a good thing that Mike Helton is.
He's managed to infuriate them all, once getting punched in the face by Spencer and then booed by fans at the next race, which Busch won. He was caught on radio two years ago cussing out Helton, the president of NASCAR. He admitted to purposely running into Gordon to bring out a caution flag, and later said he considered brushing up against another car to mess up the aerodynamics. (WCG Note: Where was the penalty?)
We probably need to insert something here, something that almost no one wants to admit and absolutely no one wants to acknowledge to Busch: He might be the best driver in racing.
Busch does things with a race car that few people will even attempt, that few people would even think of. Busch drives into situations others wouldn't consider safe. He drives onto the apron. He drives through the infield grass. He drives four-wide at Talladega, brushing alongside one car to catch a side draft and another to alter its aerodynamics and comes out of it fishtailing toward the wall and headed to the front.
Busch is a great driver, even if no one wants to admit it.
Instead, what you hear people say is stuff like "We need to put a restrictor plate on his foot because his foot obviously doesn't register with this brain." Kevin Harvick said that after tangling with Busch last year. There are other assessments of the 26-year-old from Las Vegas.
"Kurt has a lot to learn," Spencer said two years ago. "A lot of that is to control his mouth."
He can control a car, however. We saw that at Charlotte this year and at Darlington last year and at Bristol the last three years, and through the pressure-packed championship chase, what with Johnson running him down like a shadow, we've seen Busch mature as a driver and a person.
He hasn't infuriated anyone in weeks. He hasn't used the word "circumferences" in months and he hasn't stood in the middle of a super-speedway pointing at his rear end then getting busted in the mouth after threatening to kill one of his fellow drivers in, oh, a year or so.
Busch says he grew up while we weren't looking. Well, what he says is "I haven't had the time to develop a rapport with anybody or a specific notion on who I am because it continues to change so rapidly."
Whatever.
He has the face of a pharmaceutical salesman, which he went to school for. He has the face of Ichabod Crane, which people in the garage call him behind his back. By the end of this afternoon, he just might be the new face of NASCAR.