KURT BUSCH LOOKING TO TAME “THE LADY IN BLACK” ON SATURDAY
Miller Lite Dodge Driver Has “Ultimate Respect” For Treacherous Darlington International Raceway

DARLINGTON, S.C. (May 8, 2007) – Miller Lite Dodge driver Kurt Busch has always let it be known that he has the highest regard for the historical and demanding 1.366-mile Darlington Raceway. Entering Saturday’s Dodge Avenger 500 on the weathered old egg-shaped oval, Busch is taking it one step further.

“With us running the new Car of Tomorrow there this weekend and considering how worn the surface is, you better come in there with the ultimate respect for the place,” said Busch, now up to ninth in the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup point standings after his fifth-place finish Sunday at Richmond. “She’ll (the track) definitely earn all those nicknames this weekend, I’ll guarantee you that. They call the place the ‘Lady in Black’ and the ‘Track Too Tough To Name’ and I imagine there might even be a few more choice names tossed around after Saturday night’s race.

“Darlington has always had the reputation for being so demanding that you’re on your toes every lap,” said Busch, who collected his first career NEXTEL Cup pole position in qualifying for the September 2001 Darlington race. “That mental focus factor will be at an all-time high for Darlington this weekend.

“Everyone has heard of the famous ‘Darlington stripes’ and they will be on everybody out there,” added Busch, whose best finish on the track, a second-place tally, came in the March 2003 battle, a race won by Ricky Craven by only 0.002 seconds, the closest finish in the history of electronic timing. “You won't see that side-by-side, nose-to-tail action that you’ve been seeing elsewhere with these cars, just because you don't see that at Darlington. Just the way the asphalt is so old and it's so rough and there's virtually no grip in that asphalt, it's really going to be a one off race. It'll be a big, big test. There's going to be a lot of right-side damage, I can tell you that.”

Busch and his Troy Raker-led Miller Lite Team prepared for this weekend’s Darlington race by testing last Tuesday (May 1) at Rockingham (the defunct North Carolina Motor Speedway).

“The Rockingham surface is old and just as abrasive as the Darlington surface, so we went there to see how our car would react with stiff springs, soft springs and so fourth,” Busch explained. “There are just so many unknowns with the COT. We had to at least go there with our checklist and cut it in half. If we had 10 questions we probably still have five of them left, but it was good to go there and test. Does it want a big swaybar? Does it want a little swaybar? You never know. The COT still continues to be able to accept any setup, but we're trying to narrow it down so it can give us the best overall speed.”

“But we’re very realistic in what we could gain in testing at Rockingham in preparation for Darlington,” said Raker, the interim leader who is who is filling in for Roy McCauley as he spends time with his ill wife. “When you’re testing with Hoosiers (racing tires) and racing Goodyears at Darlington, you have to keep that in mind. We tested with the second oldest COT car we have in the fleet (PSC-502) during the test and we’ll have a brand new car (PSC-516) ready to race at Darlington this weekend.

“The major aspect that we focused on during the test was the spring and bar combinations,” Raker continued. “We were able to weed out the extremes and narrow the box in which we’ll be working with this weekend at Darlington.”

This weekend’s Dodge Avenger 500 action gets under way on Friday with practice from 10:30 a.m. till 12:00 noon. Qualifying on Friday afternoon at 3:10 p.m. will set the entire 43-car starting field. The final “Happy Hour” practice session for the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup competitors is set for Friday from 6:50 p.m. till 7:50 p.m. Saturday’s Dodge Avenger 500 has a 7:00 p.m. start. The 367-lap, 501.3-mile battle features live coverage by FOX-TV and MRN Radio beginning at 6:30 p.m. EDT.

Notes of interest:

--Miller Lite Dodge driver Kurt Busch says there should be intensified respect for the treacherous and demanding Darlington Raceway in this weekend’s Dodge Avenger 500.

“With us running the new Car of Tomorrow there this weekend and considering how worn the surface is, you better come in there with the ultimate respect for the place,” Kurt said. “She’ll (the track) definitely earn all those nicknames this weekend, I’ll guarantee you that. They call the place the ‘Lady in Black’ and the ‘Track Too Tough To Name’ and I imagine there might even be a few more choice names tossed around after Saturday night’s race.”

--Kurt predicts there will be “Darlington Stripes” for all involved – not just the less-experienced or rookie drivers this weekend at Darlington. “Everyone has heard of the famous ‘Darlington stripes’ and they will be on everybody out there,” Kurt said. “You won't see that side-by-side, nose-to-tail action that you’ve been seeing elsewhere with these cars, just because you don't see that at Darlington. Just the way the asphalt is so old and it's so rough and there's virtually no grip in that asphalt, it's really going to be a one off race. It'll be a big, big test. There's going to be a lot of right-side damage, I can tell you that.”

--Kurt’s Darlington career record sports one top-five finish, four top-10s and one pole position in 10 races. His best finish on the track, a second-place tally, came in the March 2003 battle, a race won by Ricky Craven by only 0.002 seconds, the closest finish in the history of electronic timing.

--Kurt on that “forever-highlight-reel” finish on March 16, 2003: “Ricky Craven and I were both in the same state of mind in that we both wanted to win, but neither of us was going to wreck the other guy. I think it was the ultimate example of two guys racing as hard as they could to win a race. If that same situation played out again a hundred times, 99 of them would probably end with a big crash before they got to the finish line.”

--Kurt and his Miller Lite Dodge crew tested last week at Rockingham in their preparation for this weekend’s visit to Darlington. “The Rockingham surface is old and just as abrasive as the Darlington surface, so we went there to see how our car would react with stiff springs, soft springs and so fourth,” Kurt said. “There are just so many unknowns with the COT. We had to at least go there with our checklist and cut it in half. If we had 10 questions we probably still have five of them left, but it was good to go there and test. Does it want a big swaybar? Does it want a little swaybar? You never know. The COT still continues to be able to accept any setup, but we're trying to narrow it down so it can give us the best overall speed.”

--Team interim crew chief Troy Raker acknowledged that, “there’s only so much you can learn out of that scenario and we understand that,” when it comes to testing at Rockingham in preparation for Darlington. “We’re very realistic in what we could gain in testing at Rockingham,” Troy said. “When you’re testing with Hoosiers (racing tires) and racing Goodyears at Darlington, you have to keep that in mind. We tested with the second oldest COT car we have in the fleet (PSC-502) during the test and we’ll have a brand new car (PSC-516) ready to race at Darlington this weekend. The major aspect that we focused on during the test were the spring and bar combinations. We were able to weed out the extremes and narrow the box in which we’ll be working with this weekend at Darlington.”

--Kurt, Troy and the Miller Lite Team are rolling out a brand new Dodge Avenger for this weekend, their new PSC-516 chassis. The Penske Team opted to start a new “500 Series” in numbering their new COT Dodge Avengers, so this is the 16th new COT chassis to come out of the team’s “everything-under-one-roof” headquarters in Mooresville, N.C.

-- While many competitors openly state their disdain for racing at Darlington, such is certainly not the case with Kurt. “I’ve always loved racing at Darlington,” Kurt said. “From way back in my short-track days, I can remember the place being so full of history. I always thought that it would be so cool to race there. When I got my first opportunity to race at Darlington back in the spring race of 2001, I found out that everything I’d heard about the place was absolutely true. It is such a challenging track and so demanding from a mental standpoint. You have to get your car setup right to deal with the unbelievably abrasive surface. That’s just part of the equation, because then you have to apply a mental focus to each and every lap. You really do race the racetrack lap after lap in hopes of being there up front to race the other competitors in the final few laps.”

--Kurt insists that his background of racing on the short tracks out West has been extremely beneficial in becoming one of the most competitive drivers at Darlington today. “Tire management is so critical at Darlington and I was fortunate to have gotten a pretty good grasp for that aspect of racing years ago when we ran the (Las Vegas) Bullring and several other tracks on the Southwest Tour,” said Kurt, who won the 1999 NASCAR Featherlite Southwest Series title by posting six wins, 11 top-five finishes and 12 top-10 finishes in 18 races. “If there ever was a ‘college of effective tire management,’ the days back then of racing on so many grainy, abrasive and worn out race tracks certainly was it.”

--Kurt and crew testing at Lowe’s Motor Speedway through Tuesday night in preparation for “Charlotte Speed Weeks ’07.” “We’ll have the Texas car (PSC-078) and the ’73 car’ there checking them both out,” Troy said. “We also have the ’89 car’ that could be a good fit for the track. We’ll try to sort it out and save our fastest car for the (Coca-Cola) 600. Since the All Star race is always an anything-goes, take-no-prisoners shootout, our strategy this time around is to have an expendable car for that race. It’s hard these days to try to rely on using the same car for both weekends. It’s a secure feeling knowing that you’re saving your best stuff for the big points-paying race.”

--“Don’t talk too much. Don’t pop off. Don’t talk after the game until you cool off.” –Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant