Martin Truex Jr. has six Busch Series wins so far this season. Credit: Autostock

March to the title continues for Truex Jr.

Busch Series frontrunner enters Atlanta with comfortable lead

HAMPTON, Ga. -- The time has come where it's not really necessary to talk about the battle for the Busch Series championship.

No, after Martin Truex Jr.'s victory at Memphis last weekend, the time has come to talk about when he will clinch the championship.

MARTIN TRUEX JR. •   Driver Page •   2004 Stats

Truex Jr. enters this weekend's Aaron's 312 at Atlanta Motor Speedway with a 208-point lead on second-place Kyle Busch. If he finishes eighth or better Saturday and in the remaining races at Phoenix, Darlington and Homestead, the 2004 title is his, no matter what Busch does.

Truex Jr. has been atop the Busch Series points standings for 16 consecutive weeks, slowly building his lead. Now, it's commanding. Only a disaster can prevent Truex Jr. from claiming the championship for Chance 2 Motorsports and co-owners Teresa Earnhardt and Dale Earnhardt Jr.

"I try not to think about the points lead," Truex Jr. said. "Two bad races, and we can easily lose our lead. This has been a great season, and we don't want to just lie down and take it easy because of the lead we have. It's important to have a strong finish."

That means Truex Jr. won't "points race" in the remaining events.

"We're here to win races and run up front every week," Truex said. "We're going to race like we did from week one. That's what we've been doing, and that's what got us here, and that's what is going to keep us here."

Truex Jr. has six victories in 2004, one fewer than Earnhardt Jr. had in 1998.

"I would love to be in the same league he's in," Truex said.

Mike Wallace will have a new crew chief this weekend, but Rick Ren will only be the "acting crew chief," Wallace said.

Mike Wallace won earlier this season at Daytona. Credit: Autostock

Wallace and car owner Fred Biagi apparently aren't in a hurry to hire a full-time replacement for Tony Lambert.

"We have been very enticed by the quality of people that have called us about coming to work for us," Wallace said. "We are in the process of talking with several folks. But they are all working for existing teams so we couldn't hire them tomorrow if we wanted. But we are really happy with the quality of the people that are interested in the job."

Robert Yates Racing is building its own Busch cars next season and will get a head start on 2005 by lending assistance to the Biagi Bros. Ren, whom Wallace hopes will be with the No. 4 team next weekend at Phoenix, too, is part of that package.

"We hope to get some help from Robert Yates Racing this weekend," Wallace said. "They are building their own Busch cars for next year, and this way they can get some experience and help us out at the same time."

Joe Gibbs Racing driver J.J. Yeley will perform triple duty this weekend, driving in the Nextel Cup, Busch Series and IROC races at Atlanta. He starts from the pole in the IROC finale Saturday, minutes after driving JGR's Busch car.

J.J. Yeley

Yeley is also schedule to drive the No. 11 Chevrolet in the Nextel Cup race Sunday.

"I am very excited about all of the racing that lies before me this weekend," Yeley said. "We have performed very well on the 1.5-mile racetracks this year with our Joe Gibbs Racing Busch program, so that certainly gives me some added confidence going to Atlanta."

Another Gibbs driver, Tony Stewart, will be in the Busch race, too. But Stewart will be driving the No. 92 Chevrolet for Kevin Harvick Inc. at Atlanta. Harvick recently announced that Stewart and Tony Raines will split time for KHI in 2005.

Reed Sorenson looks to make another step up in Saturday's Busch race, when he'll drive Chip Ganassi Racing's No. 41 Dodge. Sorenson, the 18-year-old development driver for Ganassi, finished 13th in his Busch debut at Indianapolis Raceway Park.

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Sorenson, from Peachtree City, Ga., then finished 10th last weekend at Memphis in his second start.

"I can't wait to race at Atlanta Motor Speedway in front of my hometown crowd," Sorenson said. "This weekend will be my first time racing on the big track. I haven't had a ton of experience on superspeedways, so it was very important to the team that we test, and I think we had a successful test in the Discount Tire Dodge.

"I ran over 200 laps, so I was able to learn a lot about the track. This is one of the fastest tracks on the NASCAR circuit, so it was important to get used to it during a test than to just show up and expect to race well. I was able to run all over the track and got used to the different lines."