Busch wins rain-shortened NAPA 500

HAMPTON, Ga. -- One year after his short NASCAR Winston Cup career hit "my lowest point," Kurt Busch won his second straight race Sunday when rain cut the NAPA 500 77 laps short at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

NAPA 500 Rain doesn't keep Kurt Busch from Victory Lane. Play video Busch does some more celebrating at Atlanta. Play video Joe Nemechek scores his best finish of 2002. Play video  •  Results  •  Standings  •  Video Highlights  •  EA SPORTS Photo Gallery

Busch, who has scored three victories in 75 Winston Cup starts but failed to qualify for last fall's NAPA 500, won last weekend at Martinsville Speedway. He took his first victory last spring at Bristol Motor Speedway in the No. 97 Rubbermaid Ford.

Busch, a Las Vegas native, was leading at lap 242 when the race's fifth caution flew, for rain. Six laps later, with the condition of the track deteriorating too badly to be dried, the race was checkered.

Joe Nemechek, Dale Jarrett, Winston Cup point leader Tony Stewart and Dale Earnhardt Jr. followed Busch at the finish.

"Track position was everything," said Busch, who led four times for a race-high 84 laps. "But yet, you've got to race and you've got to race fast and this guy (team owner Jack Roush) gives me the tools to do it."

Before the season, Roush made a crew chief change among his teams, swapping Jimmy Fennig from Mark Martin's team to Busch's. Fennig's crew won the race for Busch when, under the fourth caution the leaders all pitted, despite falling raindrops that threatened to end the race at any moment.

Busch took four tires with an air pressure adjustment and fuel and beat Stewart and Nemechek off pit road.

"That was the key (because) we were a little bit off, chassis-wise," Busch said. "We had a great in and out as far as getting onto pit road and off of pit road and the guys did an awesome job, once again."

"That was the key because we could go back out and run faster laps because we were too loose before, but then (after pitting) the car was perfect."

Stewart took a giant step toward his first stock car title when Raybestos Rookie of the Year candidate Jimmie Johnson, who came into the race second in the standings and only 82 points behind, spun twice and finished 22nd.

Martin unofficially jumped into second in the standings after he ended an up-and-down day in eighth, but lost ground to Stewart and is unofficially 146 points behind with three races remaining.

"I'm really proud of my whole Home Depot team -- our attitude is great and we don't change it during the race weekend at all," Stewart said. "We're still (operating) under the theory that if we win races, the points will take care of themselves (and) we had to start with that today because we had an awesome car all weekend."

Unlike Martin and Johnson, Stewart led laps during the event.

	Joe Nemechek scored his second top-five finish in the past five starts. Credit: Autostock

Bad weather, which dominated activity at the 1.54-mile speedway since it opened Friday, was looming to the west when the 33rd Winston Cup race of the season went green.

Virtually the entire field made a pit stop under the event's first caution, when John Andretti crashed his No. 43 Cheerios Dodge out of the race off Turn 2 at lap 5.

By the time 15 laps had been run, there were reports of raindrops falling at various points around the track. That was a condition that persisted, to one degree or another, for the entire event.

The second caution was displayed at lap 17 and after circulating under caution for 13 minutes, the pace car brought the field down pit road and the red flag was displayed after 26 laps. The race was stopped for 2:26.26.

The rainy day continued a soggy trend that has afflicted NASCAR since the Labor Day weekend Mountain Dew Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway. It also nullified

AMS's guarantee to give fans money off future ticket purchases if there were not 30 lead changes in the race.