KURT BUSCH READY FOR RETURN TO BRISTOL MOTOR SPEEDWAY
Miller Lite Dodge Driver A Five-Time Winner In Only 14 Starts On BMS High-Banked .533-Mile Oval

BRISTOL, Tenn. (March 11, 2008) – Miller Lite Dodge driver Kurt Busch is eager to return to Bristol Motor Speedway for this weekend’s Food City 500. Since the .533-mile oval has been the site for five of Busch’s 17 career wins on the NASCAR Sprint Cup racing tour, his level of anticipation is easily understood.

Busch, the 2004 series champion, is quick to point to Bristol as his favorite of the 22 tracks that currently host the most elite level of stock car racing. He is also fast to list his win in the Aug. 23, 2003 Sharpie 500 at Bristol as his favorite victory to date.

“Bristol is always so exciting and it continues to be the hottest ticket in motorsports,” said Busch, whose 11th-place finish at Atlanta last Sunday moved him back up to 10th in the current NASCAR Sprint Cup point standings. “I learned that it was in my best interest to like racing at the place years ago. Even with this new car and the track’s reconfiguration, Bristol still rates as my favorite track and I guess it always will be.

“Just like Rusty, I scored my first career win at Bristol,” Busch said of nine-time Bristol race winner Rusty Wallace, who Busch replaced behind the wheel of the No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge when Wallace retired after the 2005 season. “Four of my five Bristol wins have come in the day race and the win at Bristol in the night race of 2003 will always stand out in my mind as a favorite race win.

“But that first win back in 2002 was special because it was my first career win,” Busch said of the Bristol victory on March 24, 2002. “Of course, the spring race win in 2006 will always be memorable because it was my first win as a driver for Penske Racing. I guess you can say that Bristol is a track that holds so many special moments for my career and we hope there are quite a few more in store in the years to come.”

While the Bristol track has been the scene for so much positive results through Busch’s career, he has also fought through more than his fair share of adversity on the track known as the "World's Fastest Half-Mile."

During his first-ever visit to the track for the March 25, 2001 Food City 500, the Las Vegas native experienced an unbelievably difficult weekend that he can humorously reflect on today.” The official race report shows that Busch started 39th and finished 42nd. He completed only 118 of the 500 laps and exited the race due to an accident.

“There was definitely a learning curve for me at Bristol,” Busch recalled with a smile recently. “All you have to do is go back and look at my first Cup race at Bristol back in 2001. It wasn’t pretty. As a matter of fact, it was downright ugly. The first time I crashed that day, it was on my on. The second time I wrecked, I was in a big pileup. I guess you could say that the third time was the charm, in that we punctured the radiator in that crash.

“That put us out for good,” Busch continued, now laughing as he recalled his first Bristol race. “They just kept on fixing it and putting me back out there to get track time. When we were finally done for the day, I looked up on the board and there were still about 400 laps of racing left. They didn’t have the tunnel down in the third turn at the time, so I was forced to sit there and watch all the others go at it for another three hours.

“I promised myself that day a situation like that would never happen again. It became a necessity in my mind to become a good racer at Bristol. I guess I’ve done a pretty decent job at accomplishing that goal.”

Last year’s Food City 500 was historical in that it marked the introduction of the now-standard COT cars into competition. It was a trying weekend for Busch and one that he’d just as soon forget.

“The spring race at Bristol last season was one of the lowest points of my career and I’ve never tried to hide that fact,” said Busch. “It was the debut of our new Dodge Avenger and the very first race for the COT cars. We just fell flat on our tails and I was very embarrassed about it.

“We practiced terrible, we qualified terrible and we raced terrible,” said Busch, who started 42nd and finished 29th in last year’s Food City 500. “That’s about all there is to say about that weekend. As much as I love Bristol, I can’t ever remember being so glad to climb out of a race car and hurry out of the track.

“But that was then and this is now,” said Busch. “We’re light years ahead of where we were back then with this new car at Penske Racing. We left the track that day back in March of last year pretty down in the dumps, knowing that we had our work cut out for us.

“We came back with a different car and were so much better prepared for the race at Bristol last August,” said Busch. “We started 19th in the race, but came on up through the field. We had a solid top-five car for most of the race and finished sixth there on the new surface.

“We’re coming back with that same chassis this time around,” said Busch, “and we hope to be as strong at Bristol this weekend as we were then. I think we’re definitely back on track and can contend for another win at Bristol on Sunday.”

Practice at BMS on Friday from 12:00 Noon till 1:30 p.m. kicks off this weekend’s action. Qualifying to establish the starting grid for Sunday’s 500-lap battle is set for Friday at 3:40 p.m. local (live on SPEED-TV and PRN Radio). Saturday’s morning practice is scheduled from 11:00 a.m. till 11: 45 a.m. (live on SPEED-TV) and the final “happy hour” practice session is scheduled from 12:20 p.m. till 1:20 p.m. (live on SPEED-TV). Sunday’s Food City 500 has a scheduled 2:00 p.m. EDT starting time here on the .533-mile oval. FOX-TV and PRN Radio will provide live coverage of all the action beginning 30 minutes prior to race time.

Notes of interest:

--Miller Lite Dodge driver Kurt Busch and his Pat Tryson-led Penske Racing Team will be racing their PSC-516 Dodge Charger in the Food City 500 action at Bristol Motor Speedway this weekend. “It’s the same chassis we raced at Bristol last August,” Pat explained. “We started back in 19th and kept moving forward the entire race. We were a top-five car for four-fifths of the race and got a sixth-place finish out of it. I think we can be every bit as strong this time around.” The “516” chassis debuted last May in the Dodge Avenger 500 at Darlington, where Kurt started 18th and finished 12th. The team was running third with only 30 laps to go, but a slow pit stop at the end relegated him to 12th at the checkered flag.

--The pre-season agreement by Kurt, Pat and the Miller Lite Team to swap 2007 owner points with the No. 77 team saw the No. 2 team hauler parked in the far back corner of the garage area last weekend at Atlanta. The crew members were forced to operate outside the garage area under a tent on Friday. While the car was positioned on asphalt, much of the team’s work area was a mixture of grass and mud. Kurt qualified 29th on Friday night, allowing the team to finally move to a space in the permanent garage area before the extreme cold weather moved in early Saturday morning. One of the busiest team members there on Friday was team transport co-driver Cindy Lewis. “We try our best to keep our transporter as clean as possible,” she said. “We kept the vacuum cleaner going all day long and went through three cleaner bags. The guys kept tracking grass and dirt in all day long, but we felt so sorry about the conditions they had to work under that we never said anything about it.”

“That’s the great thing about our team,” Pat offered. “Nobody complained at all about anything. That was a pretty tough situation and a little embarrassing to be working outside the garage, under a tent and in the mud there on Friday. This weekend at Bristol is the fifth and final race before the 2008 points kick in. It’ll be interesting to see where Stump and Cindy (Lewis) have to park the transporter. Since there isn’t a garage, the pit spots up and down pit road serve as the work area until race day. You might have to look hard to find us there on Friday, but I’m sure we’ll be working on the car somewhere inside the track – at least I hope we’re inside the track,” Pat said with a chuckle.

Currently 10th in the 2008 point standings, Kurt, Pat and crew will definitely have better working conditions at the track beginning with the Martinsville race, the sixth event of the season.

--Quick-Stats Entering Food City 500 at Bristol (courtesy NASCAR PR): 10th in Points – Kurt Busch (No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge)