Mike's Take: Another look at Kurt Busch's Atlanta win

  Here, Atlanta, and victory....and what to expect at Bristol next for Kurt Busch? (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
  

   By Mike Mulhern
   mikemulhern.net

   ATLANTA
   Now if we can get past the latest Carl Edwards-Brad Keselowski incident and that Atlanta 500 tire debate for a moment or two, let's consider the rest of the Sunday game – and it was a heck of a race.
   Of course it may be difficult to ignore Edwards-Keselowski, even for a few moments -- and ABC's Diane Sawyer made the flipping crash one of her lead stories on the World News Tonight Monday....
  Still there was much more to the day than this feud and some tire problems.
    Atlanta Motor Speedway is one of the raciest tracks on the tour, and drivers love it, and why every race here isn't a sellout is a surprise.
    Maybe Atlanta is just a jaded sports town in general. Still, the action at this track is what NASCAR racing is all about.
    Perhaps the two key issues are traffic control and weather....and the long-simmering sense among that AMS traffic generally stinks, and that the spring weather is too iffy.
   Yes, traffic patterns around the track, particularly that backroad through Fayette County, may not be the best, and, yes, spring weather can be flakey. So move the spring race to a better spot on the schedule, and lay out a major ad campaign based on good traffic control.
   OBTW, there was a winner Sunday. And it wasn't Jimmie Johnson or Kevin Harvick or Jamie McMurray or Greg Biffle or Kyle Busch.
   It was Kurt Busch...and it could easily have been Juan Pablo Montoya, or Matt Kenseth, or one of Richard Petty's hot drivers.
   The season opened with three straight Chevy wins, but Sunday was Dodge and Ford....a refreshing change.
   And for Kurt's new crew chief  Steve Addington – dropped by brother Kyle late last season and quickly snapped up by older brother Kurt – the win was vindication.
   And Kurt Busch says that Addington has given him some interesting tips on how to deal with the car-of-tomorrow.   "Steve has taught me how to drive cars different, how to look at them differently," Busch says.
   Busch called Addington's setup here "utility-type...What I mean by that is it was good on long runs, good in the middle runs and good on the short runs.
   "We weren't excellent in any area, but good overall.
    "Sometimes there are cautions and you stay out on old tires; the car reacted well on those.
    "That's what it takes – a well-rounded car."
    Addington may be adding more to Roger Penske's game than just making Busch more competitive; teammate Brad Keselowski was running sixth and digging at the end, when he got waylaid.
    "I saw all cars from Penske in the top-10 at one point," Busch noted. "We've definitely turned a good corner.
    "Steve is working real well with (fellow crew chiefs) Travis and Jay. All the thoughts of 'How is Steve going to be able to handle a different Busch?', well, it feels good to be able to get to victory lane right away.
     "I haven't even yelled at him yet..."
    Late in the race, with Busch dominating, things began to go, well, wacky – crashes, cautions, slow yellows, feuding....
    So Busch radioed Addington at the end, after the win, that he felt like he'd won the race three times Sunday.
    "That's who I am when I'm out in the groove, out in the zone, saying something sarcastic." Busch explained with a laugh. "A lot of times it comes over the wrong way.
     "In years past the leader would have taken the yellow and won the race. It would have been done.
     "Then it would have gone to a green-white-checkered.
    "Now we've gone to multiple green-white checkered finishes."
     And there was little doubt that Busch and Addington had the best car at the end, though Ford's Kasey Kahne was close at times.
    Still, the final restart – the second overtime – was somewhat strange. Clint Bowyer and Paul Menard had both taken only two tires during the late pit stops while most everyone else took four...even with just a few laps left.    
    So Busch was behind the two at the green, with Montoya champing at the bit to get to him. Fortunately for Busch, Montoya spun his tires at the flag.
   Busch said he was quite worried about Montoya on those last restarts, because of his Formula One experience: "He was going to be one of the toughest, because of all the standing starts he had to do in Formula One. He's good at finding that forward bite -- that traction you need on a restart.
    "I think he ended up slipping his tires and didn't get that restart that he wanted." 
    Montoya conceded that Busch might have snookered him: "We have those two lines we are supposed to restart with...and he went for it like 40 yards before the first one.
     "It really surprised me.
       "It is not a big deal; he deserves to win. I am not going to say 'Oh, we should have won because he did that.'
      "I just want to make sure for the next time NASCAR knows about it."
    Next for Busch: "I saw Clint cheating up towards the topside to block that top groove, and Menard had to block the low lane, with Jamie McMurray on the inside," Busch said.
     "So it worked out perfect – the two were too busy thinking about what they had to do on two tires.
     "We were on the offense, and we had four tires.
     "The car stuck really well on the restart -- We shot through there like a slingshot.
       "I was happy about that move. I was going to look to the high-side in one and two, make it three-wide, hold it wide-open, and see what we got.
     "Luck had it where we just split the middle, held it wide open and cleared those guys."
      
    Tuesday Goodyear will be tire-testing at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway for the Mother's Day weekend tour stop. Ford, Chevy, and Toyota will have cars there, but not Dodge – because Dodge has only the Penske operation this season, and Goodyear and NASCAR want to pass the tire testing around to as many teams as possible, rather than just manufacturers.
    However the tire issues seen here Sunday might make for some second-guessing on whom to invite – Mark Martin was the fastest Atlanta tire tester for Goodyear, but he hit only 185 mph....and when 500 qualifying was over Friday 22 men had topped 190 mph, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. was on the pole at 193 mph.  Perhaps faster tire testing speeds would have uncovered the chassis setup issues that dogged some teams in Sunday's 500. And was it ironic, or more than ironic, that the Rick Hendrick teams (Martin drives for Hendrick) seemed to have more tire troubles than the rest?
     "When you have speed on a track that's very abrasive, you're going to be worried about tires -- whether it's blistering of the right-front, or  blistering the right-rear.
     "That's what I was really focused on with Steve -- not to abuse one tire versus another.
     "It's real easy to make a car turn, but 'Hey, is it going to abuse the tire?'
    "We wanted to stay away from that."

     And now, four races into the season, how does Busch size up his operation, heading into a rare week off?
      "We've been a ping-pong ball in the points -- Daytona, we were 23rd...bumped up to ninth after California...back to 19th after Vegas...and I don't know where we are right now.
      "We need to have some more consistency.
      "We look at the short-track season coming up: Bristol, Martinsville, and Phoenix.
      "Atlanta is the last race for a 'wing' on a 1-1/2-mile. I think the new (flat-blade) spoiler is going to throw a wrench into it."
      The big challenge with the new flat-blade should be at Texas April 18th; an indication of what to anticipate should come during a Charlotte test later this month.

   

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