Talladega Superspeedway, October 1st – 3rd, 2004
NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series: EA Sports 500, 1:30PM CDT, Sunday, October 3rd
Kurt Busch
Team: No. 97 Sharpie Ford Taurus
Owner: Jack Roush
Crew Chief: Jimmy Fennig
Chassis: #55 (finished 16th at Daytona, wrecked at Talladega in the spring)
Kurt Busch on racing at Talladega Superspeedway:
"Talladega is definitely going to be the wild card in the ‘Chase for the NEXTEL Cup.’ If you're running in the top-five during the race, usually you're single file and out of the three-wide pack - that's something you try to position yourself for. If you're stuck in the middle of the pack, there's not much you can do. You don't want to get caught up in that big wreck, so you have to decide if you want to go forward or if you want to hang out in the back and wait for a pit stop to jumble up the field. Qualifying is important, but, if you qualify up front, you can get shuffled to the back quickly if you get into the wrong draft. We'll just see how it shakes up. We have a good car. It's the car we ran at the first Daytona and then here again in the spring, so I'm excited to bring it back. We're second in points by a single point, but I have a feeling that could change pretty drastically considering how these restrictor-plate races tend to go.”
Crew Chief Jimmy Fennig on racing at Talladega Superspeedway:
“Kurt’s done pretty well here over the years. We’re bringing the same car and back-up that we took to Daytona for the 500, and the primary did really well there. We got caught up in a wreck here earlier in the spring, and couldn’t take the car back to Daytona for the July race. But it’s back now and we know it’s a fast car, and Kurt has proven that he knows how to handle the Sharpie Ford at these superspeedways, so we feel pretty good about it.”
Fast Facts:
With his second consecutive top-five finish in Dover last week, Kurt Busch remains second in the 2004 NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series point standings, only one point behind new series leader Jeff Gordon. Busch is the only Chase contender to have top-five finishes in both Chase events.
Busch has been among the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Top 10 for 27 consecutive race weeks (his only week out during 2004 was following a 16th place finish at the season-opening Daytona 500). He was ranked No. 1 following a sixth-place finish at Texas in early April (04/04/04), and shared the lead with Dale Earnhardt Jr. for one week following his win at Loudon (09/19/04)..
Busch has been strong at Talladega with four top-10 finishes in seven career starts. Three of those performances at Talladega have been among the top five, including a best of third achieved in April of 2001 and matched the following year in the same event. Busch has led laps in four of his seven Talladega starts.
