Steve Wilson, The Examiner
2008-05-14 07:00:00.0
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BALTIMORE -

It’s hard to blame Kyle Busch for taking it personally.

Busch won a Rookie of the Year title and had two consecutive Chase for the Cup appearances in his three seasons with Hendrick Motorsports. But his brash attitude off the track trumped what he did on it, causing him to be  unceremoniously dumped by the team at the end of last season in favor of Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Whether Busch acknowledges it, his departure from Hendrick to Joe Gibbs Racing has been his greatest motivator, helping enable him to win three races, including a hard-fought victory in the Dodge Challenger 500 in Darlington, S.C., on Saturday.

Still, Busch remains a controversial figure. After his well-publicized wreck with Earnhardt at Richmond, Busch seemed to wear the incident as a badge of honor at Darlington, responding to the fans’ chorus of boos with more of the fiery attitude that led to him being kicked out of Hendrick’s garage.

“I don’t care,” Busch said. “I’m here to race, here to win. If I win, it just makes them more upset and crying on their way home.”

We have seen plenty of controversial figures in NASCAR over the years — Darrell Waltrip, Rusty Wallace and even Dale Earnhardt Sr. — but nobody seems to relish the role of playing the “bad guy” nearly as much as Busch.

“Someone threw a beer can at me,” Busch quipped about the fan reaction to his victory. “Next time, just make sure it’s full so I can enjoy it, all right?”

Busch has made great strides in terms of his perspective behind the wheel. His accident with Earnhardt Jr. at Richmond notwithstanding, Busch has shown great poise in his three wins, and his move to Gibbs seems to have instilled an unwavering confidence, the kind of which we typically see from champions like Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon.

“To be honest with you, a year or two years ago, I probably would have just thrown my hands up and wrecked the thing,” said Busch of working through the problems he faced at Darlington. “But I’m getting that much smarter … to where I know that we’ve still got a long race, where we could rebound from it.”

Busch said he hasn’t been slighted by his former team, and is slow to acknowledge he feels he has something to prove. But it doesn’t take long to see Busch is racing with a chip on his shoulder, and his unorthodox approach is producing results, regardless of how he is received by fans.

NASCAR does not want drivers to shy away from showing their personalities on and off the track — and that’s exactly what Busch is doing.

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