Kyle Busch has had plenty of reason to smile in recent weeks. Credit: Autostock

Kyle Busch goes for three in a row Friday

At older brother's best track, rookie hopes to keep momentum

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- These Busch boys, they are a streaky lot.

Kurt Busch, the older brother, has won three consecutive races at Bristol Motor Speedway. Saturday night, he'll go for four in a row in the Nextel Cup Sharpie 500.

Kyle Busch, the younger brother, has won two Busch Series races in a row. Friday night, he'll go for three in a row at Bristol in the Food City 250.

Busch's No. 5 Chevrolet made it to Victory Lane at Michigan last week. Credit: CIA Stock Photo

Not many doubt either Busch can get it done. Kurt may have the more difficult task, for surviving 500 laps at Bristol is tougher than 250 laps. But Kyle's attempt at three in a row won't be easy, either.

He won two weeks ago at Indianapolis Raceway Park and then doubled-up last weekend at Michigan International Speedway. Now comes the high-banked half-mile in Bristol, Tenn.

"I'm pretty excited to get back there," Busch said. "Obviously, we had a pretty good car there in the spring. It wasn't excellent, but we made a decent race of it, and we kind of hung out there in the top 10 pretty much most of the day.

"We raced there a little too hard there in the beginning and had to settle myself down, and I was told by a few other people to settle myself down and get back in line and just kind of hang out for a while.

"There towards the end of the race, there was just a bunch of stuff happening and going on and we were able to slide our way through there and miss everything."

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Busch ended up third in the Sharpie Professional 250 in his first NASCAR short track race. That was also his first career top-five finish and started a streak of 10 consecutive top-10s that put him in the Busch Series points lead.

Busch has since lost that lead to Martin Truex Jr., but he sits second, 97 points back.

Truex Jr., by the way, won at Bristol in the spring.

"We came out lucky, knock on wood, with a third-place finish, so hopefully this time around we'll be able to qualify up front somewhere and be able to stay up there," Busch said.

"You know, Martin Truex and Greg Biffle pretty much had the dominant cars, so we look forward to hopefully having just as good a car as they did, and hopefully we can keep up with them."

Busch is getting used to celebrating victories. Credit: CIA Stock Photo

In recent years, Bristol has become one of the tracks on which every driver wants to win. The Bristol Cup race in August is at or near the top of every driver's to-do list, and the Busch race has gotten bigger, too.

But to Busch's crew chief, Lance McGrew, survival is the name of the game.

"I usually just pick it out in the same regards as the Daytona and Talladega races," McGrew said "I'd just like to finish it. Generally, it's one of the tracks we go to that is so rough on equipment just mechanically, even without the rest of the other competitors there.

"Just to have your car survive that many laps at a place that demands so much out of it is pretty amazing, let alone the competition side of it. We just go there with a pretty open mind and look to compete as best we can, and hopefully we'll get another finish like we did in the spring."

Both McGrew and Busch would like to finish ahead of Truex Jr., for the season is winding down. Gaining 97 points isn't impossible, but Truex Jr. has been strong enough this season to keep everyone at bay, including five-time winner Busch.

"I don't really believe that the 8 is going to stumble bad enough to give us back a whole bunch of points at one time," McGrew said. "Those guys are a great race team and they've been super consistent all year long and they've won their share of races as well.

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"Martin is a heads-up racer and 'Bono' (Kevin Manion) is a really good crew chief, so A to Z that's a pretty stout team, and I feel like the only way we are going to get back into the points race is (gaining) 10, 15, 20 points at a time at best. That's what it's going to take for us to get back in it."

Busch gained 20 points last week at Michigan, even after a dominant performance. Truex Jr. Busch led the most laps and won the race, with Truex Jr. third.

Now, he'll try to duplicate that at Bristol. But he's not feeling any pressure, he said.

"Not really. Obviously, I think you'd start feeling the heat if you weren't winning and everyone would kind of be seeing it," Busch said. "We just kind of go back to the racetrack every week and do what we want to do, which is to try to finish in the top five or the top 10 and get a win if we can.

"We just basically try to keep that mentality going, and if we get to the racetrack and have a really good car like we did this past weekend, we just try to make the most of it and get it to Victory Lane if we can."