Kurt Busch grows up, but refuses to be dull

The first caller on the first of several radio shows one morning last week didn't waste time:

NASCAR fan: "Hey, Kurt, I just wanted to know if you let that butterball Toyota driver punch you in the head like the paper said. I think you can take that little freak. He's quite the butterball this year with that hairdo."

NASCAR driver: "He wanted to throw a punch, but I bobbed and weaved like a middle welterweight. We went toe to toe, I think, because I told him he has a large waistband. No punches were landed. His (hair) is weird, man. I don't know what look he is going for."

Kurt Busch, author of the above quotation, insists his fuse has grown over time, that it only ignites if the same guy keeps running into him, and only then is it like someone taking a pair of scissors and chopping it shorter and shorter. Tony Stewart would be the one holding the clippers. It's not such a terrible thing.

NASCAR didn't first pique the mainstream fan's interest at the Daytona 500 in 1979 because Richard Petty won but because Donnie and Bobby Allison got into a backstretch brawl with Cale Yarborough that CBS showed live nationally. Guys just don't punch and choke and swing helmets at each other as much now. There's something sad about that.

"We need drama," Speedway Motorsports Inc. founder Bruton Smith said. "We need somebody to get out of the car and go over and slap somebody. We don't have enough drama anymore."

Busch, who qualified ninth for today's UAW-Dodge 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, has done his part.

He has managed while maturing from embarrassing incidents that spoiled parts of his early career to maintain emotional qualities within a sport far more stylish than its mountainous roots intended, whether it be by his bitter rivalry with Stewart or a sometimes heated one with his younger brother, Kyle. Simply, Kurt Busch is still relevant and interesting in a garage full of alike and often boring characters.

"Everyone who knows me knows I don't ever back down," he said. "(Stewart) and I love to race each other hard and beat the heck out of each other when it comes to finishing ahead of the other guy. It's odd, but our sport is more tailored to the drama than the actual racing. But it sells tickets and makes the sport exciting. It's nothing new."

Busch, a Las Vegas native nearing his 30th birthday, spent a day here last week being escorted from one interview to the next, a journey that also saw him read to several hundred elementary school students and race a group of fans at Pole Position Raceway, the indoor kart facility of which he has part ownership.

His career was bound to have its share of bumps and altercations on and off the track, given Busch in 1999 was running on the Southwest Tour while working the graveyard shift at the water district and within 12 months was racing Cup against Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Sr. His was an ascension void of a middle ground and proper guidance from older drivers, meaning Busch was thrown to the sharks without benefit of a cage or spear gun.

"Kurt never really got his feet wet in a lower series, which means everything he did was all of a sudden under a microscope nationally," said Jeff Motley, senior director of public relations at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. "Everything he said was analyzed as a 22-year-old kid who had never been exposed to that level of media and attention. But to me, he's still the same guy I've known for nine years."

Today's Cup race is yet another opportunity to see what NASCAR has become -- a fashionable setting of affluent corporate suits and mostly well-groomed drivers having replaced the flawed and contentious diehards of a sport born in country fields as a way for bootleggers to pass the time between whiskey runs.

Busch, off to his finest start in three years with Penske Racing after season-opening finishes of second and 13th, still owns that edge NASCAR needs to remain appealing. He doesn't always say and do the right things, but drama beats boring every day.

"It has been an incredible rise," said Busch, the 2004 NASCAR champion who was with Roush Racing before moving to Penske. "Had they wanted me to race for a quarter in (1999), I would have. You just don't get those opportunities very often. I would have loved more time to prepare, and it hasn't always gone as I would have hoped, but I love it more than ever."

All the while, he has remained interesting. Thank goodness someone has.

Ed Graney's column is published Sunday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday. He can be reached at 383-4618 or egraney@reviewjournal.com.