Kurt Busch brings back winning colors of youth for Pennzoil 400

In a gesture of gratitude, Las Vegas native Kurt Busch this weekend will be sporting winning colors from 20 years ago at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

The car he will drive in Sunday’s Pennzoil 400 will feature the royal blue, yellow, orange and white of Star Nursery, a Las Vegas garden and landscape center and Busch’s sponsor when he won NASCAR’s 1999 Southwest Tour championship as a teenager.

The only thing different will be the car number. Instead of 70, it will be the familiar No. 1 of Chip Ganassi Racing. Busch said Ganassi gave his blessing to fly the Star Nursery colors at LVMS.

“It’s something I’ve wanted to do with Craig Keough at Star Nursery for years,” the 2004 Cup Series champion said of the paint scheme that is both a sponsorship and a tribute to the race team that helped launch his career. “This year the opportunity and the timing seemed perfect. It’s our 20-year anniversary of my Southwest Tour championship with Craig.

“The sponsorship was open. Monster (Energy, Busch’s primary sponsor) wanted to do the Fontana race weekend because (former sponsor) Haas had taken the Fontana race weekend all these years. Craig Keough smiled ear to ear when I told him there was an opportunity to do it.”

When Busch made his Cup Series debut as a 21-year-old in 2000, he cited the Star Nursery president as one of his biggest benefactors.

Writing the check

“We couldn’t get much farther than the modifieds with our family money, and Craig gave me the opportunity in his late model,” Busch, 40, said. “I guess you could say the rest is history.”

On the day Busch won the NASCAR championship in 2004, Keough and Star Nursery employees cheered him on at the old NASCAR Cafe at the Sahara.

“That was their hangout,” said Busch, who finished third in Atlanta on Sunday in his second drive with the Ganassi team. “I’ve always had the support from the Star Nursery family.”

Busch will sign autographs Thursday night at the K&N Pro Series West race sponsored by Star Nursery at the LVMS dirt track. He hopes a die-cast model of the Star Nursery car will be available when NASCAR returns to Las Vegas in the fall.

The paint scheme also is a tribute to Chris Trickle, who preceded Busch as driver of the No. 70 Star Nursery car.

Trickle, the nephew of former Cup Series regular Dick Trickle, appeared headed down the same path as Busch before becoming the victim of a highway shooting in Las Vegas. Chris Trickle never recovered from his injuries and died in March 1998.

“The code word for the color blue that is on the car, that Chris mixed himself, is Trickle Blue,” Busch said. “That was derived from Petty Blue. Petty had their color blue on the 43 car, and so Chris Trickle came up with his own unique-style blue.”

Regardless of where he finishes Sunday, Kurt Busch will always consider it a winning color.