Busch brothers put family feud behind them

[May 17, 2008]  CONCORD, N.C. (AP) -- Kyle Busch needed an inch, and big brother wouldn't give it to him.

The result?

Two cars in the wall and a family feud that lasted the rest of the year.

That wreck in the final segment of last year's All-Star race nearly destroyed the relationship between Kurt and Kyle Busch. They hardly spoke to each other for almost seven months.

They put aside their differences at a Christmas gathering that started with an edge but ended with the brothers teaming to win the championship round of "Pictionary."

"Grandma asked for a Christmas present that we both get along and go to Christmas dinner together," Kyle Busch said Friday. "So that was her present."

The Busch brothers are back at the scene of the accident this weekend, and at very different stages of their careers. As they head into Saturday night's $1 million showdown, Kurt Busch has slipped off the radar while his little brother has rocketed to NASCAR stardom.

Kyle has eight wins this season spanning NASCAR's top three series and leads the Sprint Cup Series standings. Kurt has just one top-10 finish this season and is 22nd in the points.

But if the 2004 series champion is jealous of the kid he calls "The Shrub," Kurt isn't letting on.

"I'm very happy for his success," Kurt said. "Sometimes you get on a roll and you are on it, and I encourage him to keep riding this wave because Mark Martin always says, 'You've got to take the highs with the lows and draw a straight line.'"

The low for the brothers came in this race last year, as they jockeyed for position in the final 20-lap sprint. With no points and a monster payday on the line, both were running hard for the checkered flag.

Their version of what happened is similar: Kurt was passing Jeff Burton on the inside when Kyle darted below him to make it three-wide.

Once they cleared Burton, Kyle thinks Kurt should have moved back up the track to give him space to slide through the corner. Kurt readily admits he didn't.

"Instead of moving up to give him that lane, I'm like 'If you want that low lane into the straightaway, you can have the low lane on entry,'" Kurt said. "So I went in in the normal spot instead of giving him plenty of room. That was an aggressive move (by Kyle), so that was an aggressive reaction on my part."

And that's where things get sticky. Somebody is to blame for the wreck, and neither brother is willing to accept responsibility.

"You can look at it and say it was my fault for making an aggressive move, but it's the last segment of the All-Star Race and you've got to go," Kyle said. "Or you could say it was Kurt's fault that he didn't give me enough room getting into the corner."

"There's still a 51-49, or 50-50 degree of blame," Kurt said. "When I talk to Kyle Busch fans, it's definitely my fault. When I talk to Kurt Busch fans, it's definitely his fault. It makes it fun. It was an exciting night for us to have that happen."

It also set a series of events in motion that have drastically changed things for both brothers. That accident last year was the final straw for car owner Rick Hendrick, who was weary of dealing with Kyle Busch. He fired him about a month later to hire Dale Earnhardt Jr., and Kyle was snatched up by Joe Gibbs Racing.

The pairing with JGR has been perfect, and Kyle has had a dream start to this season.

"To be the odd man out at Hendrick, that gave him motivation to go out and race hard and win and be like, 'Hey, I could be doing this for you,'" Kurt said. "But we know that right now Toyota and Gibbs is a strong combination and you throw in a 23-year-old that is on top of his game, it only makes sense that he is doing well."

Kurt was on a similar roll in 2003 and 2004, when he won seven races and captured his first championship. But he seems stuck in neutral now, sputtering since his headline-grabbing start to the year. He tangled with Tony Stewart in the first practice of the year, and the scuffle spilled into the NASCAR hauler.

It was Kurt who got the last laugh, though. He pushed teammate Ryan Newman past Stewart on the last lap of the Daytona 500 to snatch the win from him and give it to Penske Racing.

There's been hardly a peep out of him since. His Penske team has struggled to make the front of his No. 2 Dodge turn the way Kurt likes it. Those handling problems, coupled with consecutive wrecks in Talladega and Richmond and then trouble with a wheel during a late pit stop last week in Darlington have made for a frustrating stretch of racing.

The second-place run to Newman at Daytona was his only top-10 finish of the year, and he's been 33rd or lower four times this season.

"On a good day, we'll finish 12th and that's not acceptable for me, for Penske Racing or the fans of the Miller Lite Dodge," he said.

Kurt got hot late last summer, winning two of the first three races in August to put himself into championship contention. He made the Chase and finished seventh in the final standings, but knows he's got a lot of work to do to put himself in that position again.

"We need those oddball things to stop happening to us," he said. "The rich get richer in this deal. If you're car is running good, you can overcome problems. We need to have a better car to do that."

[Associated Press; By JENNA FRYER]

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