KURT BUSCH READY FOR ANOTHER STINT OF TEXAS “TWO-STEP”
Miller Lite Dodge Driver Looking For Consecutive Spring Saturday Wins; “Strong Sunday Showing”

JUSTIN, Texas (April 10, 2007) – Miller Lite Dodge driver Kurt Busch is looking forward to this weekend’s return to Texas Motor Speedway and is hoping to “revisit the high points” of last year’s two trips to the 1.5-mile quad-oval located some 20 miles north of downtown Fort Worth.

“It’d certainly be cool to duplicate the Saturday spring race and the Sunday fall race this time around at Texas,” said Busch, who claimed a victory in his first-ever start in NASCAR Busch Series competition last April at Texas. “Actually, it’d be great to win another Saturday race and also be a contender for the win on Sunday. Based on how we ran last fall at Texas and our performance at Atlanta last month, I think we’re going back to Texas very optimistic that we can have a very strong Sunday showing.”

Busch started his Matt Gimbel-prepared Penske Truck Rental Dodge in the seventh spot in last April’s O’Reilly 300. Llittle did he know that his day would prove so historically significant. Busch became only the fifth driver to win in his NBS debut, joining the list that includes Dale Earnhardt, Ricky Rudd, Terry Labonte and Joe Ruttman. Busch also became the 16th driver to win at least one race in each of NASCAR’s three major series.

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The details from the April 8, 2006 O’Reilly 300 follow:

Busch started his bright yellow No. 39 Dodge in the seventh spot, but he was already up to second after 26 laps had been completed. A tight handling condition saw him slide back to fourth before the first pit stop came on Lap 62.

When the green flag pit stops cycled around on Lap 65, Busch was back in the sixth spot. The crew did several additional adjustments on a caution flag stop on Lap 84 and it worked to get Busch back running among the top three on Lap 92. He passed Greg Biffle for second on Lap 102.

During the second caution period of the race, Busch hit pit road for service on Lap 136. A 14.271-second stop, which provided fresh tires, fuel and air pressure adjustments, saw Busch at the point for the Lap 140 restart.

Busch survived six additional cautions and a final green-white-checkered flag finish in overtime to claim a 0.266-second win over runner-up Biffle. Casey Mears finished third, with brother, Kyle, in fourth and Matt Kenseth fifth. Jeff Burton, Paul Menard, Kevin Harvick, Scott Wimmer and Denny Hamlin rounded out today’s top 10 finishers.

“Matt Gimbel demonstrated here today that he is going to be a great leader in this sport.” Busch said while celebrating the win in Victory Lane. “I’ve only known him for a couple of weeks now and the first time we’ve worked together was when I came here to practice on Thursday. He has a super group of guys working around him. We had a top-three car for most of the race and when they got me out first after the caution with about 60 laps to go, that was the big difference.”

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“That was such a fun day and I look back on it as a true highlight of my career,” Busch said on Monday while recalling the 2006 O’Reilly 300 victory. “We’ve certainly had some great runs racing the Dodge that Matt and his guys prepare for us. We’ve only run one race in the Grand National car this year – at Vegas last month. We started fourth and took her to the front. We ended up just a little too tight at the end of the race. That’s what kept us out of Victory Lane, but it was still a good day for the team. I’m really looking forward to getting back out there with the Penske Truck Rental Dodge and attempting to make it two consecutive spring Saturday wins.”

“Winning the Texas race last April was certainly a high spot for my career, too,” said Gimbel, the 34-year-old Northhampton, Pa., native and Temple University engineering graduate who is overseeing the Busch Series programs for all three Penske drivers (Busch, Ryan Newman and Sam Hornish) this season. “It’s always a pleasure working with Kurt in these races and we hope to continue running strong again this weekend, as we head back out to Texas. We’ll be racing our ‘013’ car (PBC-013) again this weekend, so we know we’ll have a car that’s plenty capable of getting the job done. It’s the same car we had prepared for Kurt last month at Las Vegas.”

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After starting seventh and finishing a disappointing 34th last spring at Texas, Busch and his Roy McCauley-led Miller Lite Dodge team bounced back last October to start third and finish eighth in the Dickies 500.

“The fall Texas race showed that we were making strides in the right direction,” Busch said on Monday as he looked back on his last visit to T.M.S. “All in all it was a pretty good day. Most of the day we were loose in (entering the turns), tight in the center and loose off. We got really behind at the beginning of the race when the lug fell off the right front during a pit stop, but we got back up to the top 10. One of the last sets of tires was just so tight it was crazy, but we never gave up. We put four on it and went for it at the end. We missed the 41 (Casey Mears) when he crashed and dodged another bullet when the 10 car (Scott Riggs) crashed. We hit pit road and rolled the valance under. With the late cautions, we went into overtime. Coming down for the checkered, the 45 car (Kyle Petty) was blowing up and it really got wild. We got the eighth spot in a photo-finish with Jeff Gordon.”

“I think last month’s race at Atlanta was a great tune-up for Texas,” Busch said. “I thought we had a great car down there. The way you could run the high groove and low groove was great, but we had everything under the sun happen to us that day. We had a bad vibration when we were running in the top five and that knocked us back. Then we were coming up through the field and somebody’s windshield tear-off landed on our grille.

“I noticed it because the car started turning really good,” Busch explained. “It was just like taping off the front grille, but then we started overheating. I found Kyle, my little brother out on the track and I tucked in behind him. The tear off blew off, but the motor was pegged at 270 degrees. It was some scary moments.

“We had a bad pit stop at the end, as we came in running 10th and it pushed us back to 18th,” Busch continued. “I was in the third pit box to the end close to the end of pit road in turn one and they called us for speeding on exit. I didn’t know you could do that pitting in the third box from the end. I guess I got all the grip out of the pit box. Overall to finish 11th, it was a strong run for us and gave us a lot of optimism for this weekend out at Texas.”

“I certainly agree with Kurt that our team is super optimistic about heading back out to Texas,” said McCauley, who is taking a break from on-site track activity as his wife, Amy, is fighting health issues. “After running the Dodge Avenger on the short tracks for what seems like a month now, it’ll be a refreshing change of pace for the teams to get back out there with the other cars. We’re looking forward to seeing what further gains our team can make with the Dodge Charger on an intermediate track.

“Our team will be taking the ’90 car,’ the same car we raced at Atlanta last month, out to Texas, so we know we’ll have a car that Kurt is comfortable racing,” McCauley said of the team’s PSC-090 Miller Lite Dodge Charger. “It is a proven winning race car and you can’t get much better than that.”

The car certainly has a notable history behind it. Busch raced and won with in the 2006 spring Bristol race. Rusty Wallace had driven the same car in his final two career Bristol races. After winning the Bristol race and naming the car “Rusty,” Busch and crew stored the victorious Miller Lite Dodge away. Busch returned to Bristol last August with the same car and won his first career short-track pole. He led 27 laps in that race before a multitude of problems relegated him to a 37th-place finish. The 2006 Bristol events were the only two races that Busch drove the car until the team returned it to action last month in the Atlanta race.

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Busch’s big Texas racing weekend gets under way on Thursday with NBS practice from 11:00 a.m. till 12:10 p.m. Practice continues from 1:00 p.m. till 2:00 p.m. The 6:00 p.m. single round of qualifying determines the entire starting field for Saturday’s race. Friday’s schedule calls for Cup practice from 12:30 p.m. till 2:00 p.m. and Cup qualifying at 4:10 p.m. Saturday’s Saturday morning’s Cup practice is scheduled from 10:30 a.m. till 11:20 a.m. The final Cup practice is set for 12:20 p.m. till 1:20 p.m. The O’Reilly 300 (200 laps/300 miles) starts at 2:00 p.m. CDT and features live coverage by ESPN2 and PRN Radio. Sunday’s Samsung 500 (334 laps/501 miles) NASCAR NEXTEL Cup race, the seventh event along the 36-race 2006 schedule, begins at 1:00 p.m. CDT and features live coverage by FOX-TV and PRN Radio.

Notes of interest:

--Miller Lite Dodge crew chief Roy McCauley will be taking a leave of absence on the traveling “road crew” as he spends time with wife, Amy, who is battling cancer. “Amy has been winning her fight with Leukemia since it was first diagnosed back in February,” Roy said from his office at the Penske Racing headquarters on Tuesday afternoon. “But, there have been recent complications stemming from her long-term treatment and I feel as though I need to spend more time by her side. In the interim, I will maintain an active role with our team from a communications standpoint, but Troy Raker will be in charge, leading the team and working with Kurt on a daily basis at the race track. Amy is receiving the best care possible and we’re confident we will win the battle we are facing.”

Raker, a 42-year-old State College, Pa., native and a graduate of Penn State University with a Master of Engineering degree, has been involved in NASCAR racing since joining Ford Motorsports as an engineer in 1993. He worked with drivers Ricky Rudd and Bill Elliott and their teams prior to taking a position with Joe Gibbs Racing in 2000. Raker came to Penske Racing from JGR in January and has served as chassis engineer for all of Penske Racing’s stock car teams.

“Troy has been coming to most of the races this year, working closely with Roy, team engineer Brian Wilson, car chief Corey Tucker and me in getting these cars ready to qualify and getting them set up for the race,” driver Kurt Busch offered. “Roy will still maintain contact on a regular basis, but he needs to be there with Amy. We ask that you keep Amy and Roy in your thoughts and prayers as they work together to win the most important race of all.”

--Miller Lite Dodge Avenger driver Kurt Busch and crew chief Roy McCauley were extremely pleased after the recent (April 3-4) COT testing at Richmond International Raceway. “I think the test went really well and will help so much for not only the race coming up at Richmond, but also at Phoenix,” Kurt said. “We had two brand new cars at Richmond and had the opportunity to work quite a bit on both of them,” Roy said. “We had the new ‘514’ (PSC-514) and it’s the car we’ll race at Richmond. We also had our new ‘512’ and we’ll be racing it at Phoenix. As far as the speeds go, we were solid top 10 pretty throughout the test and clocked in with the fastest time during the final session. What was impressive was the fact we were in race trim for all but about 45 minutes of the test. I think we made a lot of progress in learning how to make the front ends on these new cars work better.” The NEXTEL Cup circuit visits Phoenix International Raceway on Saturday, April 21, and returns to race at Richmond on Saturday, May 5.

--Kurt is eager to get back to Texas Motor Speedway and defend his crown in Saturday’s O’Reilly 300 NBS race. The win was historically significant in that Kurt became only the fifth driver to win in his NBS debut, joining the list that includes Dale Earnhardt, Ricky Rudd, Terry Labonte and Joe Ruttman. Kurt also became the 16th driver to win at least one race in each of NASCAR’s three major series. “That was such a fun day and I look back on it as a true highlight of my career,” Kurt said in recalling the 2006 O’Reilly 300 victory. “We’ve certainly had some great runs over there racing the Dodge that Matt and his guys prepare for us. We’ve only run one race in the Grand National car this year – at Vegas last month. We started fourth and took her to the front. We ended up just a little too tight at the end of the race. That’s what kept us out of Victory Lane, but it was still a good day for the team. I’m really looking forward to getting back out there with the Penske Truck Rental Dodge and attempting to make it two consecutive spring Saturday wins.”

--Roy referred to this weekend’s Samsung 500 at T.M.S. as a “refreshing change of pace” as the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup tour returns to their “standard” cars after introducing their COT models during the last two races. “After running the Dodge Avenger on the short tracks for what seems like a month now, it’ll be a refreshing change of pace for the teams to get back out there with the other cars. We’re looking forward to seeing what further gains our team can make with the Dodge Charger on an intermediate track,” Roy said. “Our team is super optimistic about heading back out to Texas.”

--“Rusty” back in Cup competition this weekend at Texas. Kurt, Roy and team will be racing their PSC-090 this weekend at Texas. The car certainly has a notable history behind it. Kurt raced and won with in the 2006 spring Bristol race. Rusty Wallace had driven the same car in his final two career Bristol races. After winning the Bristol race and naming the car “Rusty” in honor of Wallace, Kurt and crew stored the victorious Miller Lite Dodge away. Busch returned to Bristol last August with the same car and won his first career short-track pole. He led 27 laps in that race before a multitude of problems relegated him to a 37th-place finish. The 2006 Bristol events were the only two races that Busch drove the car until the team returned it to action last month in the Atlanta race, where Kurt started 17th and finished 11th.

--Kurt’s overall Busch Series record is remarkable entering Saturday’s O’Reilly 300. In his only NBS race this season, Kurt started fourth and finished fourth in last month’s race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. He has now competed in eight career NBS races, scoring two wins, six top-five finishes and seven top-10s. He has led laps in all eight races and led the most laps in three of them. He has an incredible 5.25 average finish for his eight series events and a 7.0 average start in the seven races where qualifying was held.

--Matt Gimbel, crew chief for Penske Racing’s Busch Series teams, also fondly recalls last year’s O’Reilly 300 victory: “Winning the Texas race last April was certainly a high spot for my career, too,” said Matt, a 34-year-old Northhampton, Pa., native and Temple University engineering graduate who is overseeing the Busch Series programs for all three Penske drivers (Busch, Ryan Newman and Sam Hornish) this season. “It’s always a pleasure working with Kurt in these races and we hope to continue running strong again this weekend, as we head back out to Texas. We’ll be racing our ‘013’ car (PBC-013) again this weekend, so we know we’ll have a car that’s plenty capable of getting the job done. It’s the same car we had prepared for Kurt last month at Las Vegas.”

--Kurt Busch (No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge) Current Loop Data: (courtesy of NASCAR PR)