Kyle Busch still may sit atop the Sprint Cup Series standings. But as that traveling circus sets up for Sunday’s LifeLock 400 at the Michigan Speedway, its hottest driver is arguably Kasey Kahne.
Less than a month ago, not even he saw this coming.
“[Our] cars aren’t where they need to be to go fast,” he confessed back then.
But a day later the fans voted him into the May 17 NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race and suddenly he was afire.
He not only won that non-points event, but May 25 he won the Coca-Cola 600 and Sunday he won the Pocono 500. Those successes catapulted him into ninth place behind Busch and now he arrives at a track where he has a victory in 2006 and four top-five finishes.
“Momentum is so big in this sport,” he says when asked about his roll. “To win at a track like Pocono says a lot. … The excitement, the confidence and everything — you go to Gillett Evernham right now and everybody is walking around there with a smile on their faces. That’s not how it was a month and a half ago. … I’m just glad I can be part of it.
“Michigan always has been a strong track for us and we’re looking forward to keeping the momentum going. Everything is clicking for this team right now.”
Hot II (or too)
Jack Roush, the co-owner of Roush Fenway Racing, is from nearby Livonia and so it really should be no surprise that his team’s finest performances have come at Michigan. Ten of his 105 Sprint Cup Series victories were picked up at this track, where he also has posted three Nationwide Series’ triumphs and three in the Craftsman Truck Series.
“We have two-thirds of our activities and two-thirds of our people located in southeast Michigan, so we have great support and great exposure for our employees and all the things that means morale wise,” he says. “I keep waiting for the bubble to burst.
“I go to Michigan and think we have had way more than our share of good fortune here. When do we start to give it back? I sure hope it’s not this weekend.”
High time
Flying is a second love of Roush, who is an avid pilot, and this weekend he will indulge that passion as well when he performs the flyover in his P-51, a World War II fighter plane, before Saturday’s truck race. He then will land at the airport in nearby Ypsilanti and helicopter back for that race, which will include three of his drivers.
“This will be a great honor … in my hometown, as it were,” he says.
Hoping to get hot
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Last August, in the most recent Cup race at Michigan, the winner was Kurt Busch, Kyle’s older brother and the Series champ in 2004. But this season has not been kind to him and he heads toward Sunday mired in 21st in the points race.
“It’s a tough battle,” he says of his dire straits. “A year like this is definitely a character builder. It teaches you to fight from within, to keep reaching and to keep pushing harder each and every week to have a shot at trying to get back into the top 15.
“You have to keep things on a level field, to know that, ‘Hey, we can still do this. Everything’s going to be fine.'”
And finally
Kurt Busch, on the boos that often greet both him and his little brother: “When you win races, you’re hot, and people necessarily don’t like it because you’re beating their favorites. … We’re just hard-charging racers like we have been taught to do by our father and by the competition. Sometimes it’s not well received. But we’re just out there racing hard, usually putting on great racing action.”
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