Kurt Busch finished sixth despite several problems Sunday at Kansas. Credit: Autostock

Notes: Busch feeling fortunate after Kansas

Still leading the Chase, Busch sixth Sunday despite spin

KANSAS CITY, Kan. -- For Kurt Busch, Sunday's Banquet 400 at Kansas Speedway was the kind of race that championship teams have during a run to the title.

Busch and his Roush Racing team turned what could have been disaster into a top-10 finish. On Lap 152, through no one's fault but his own, Busch lost control of his No. 97 off Turn 2 and spun down the backstretch.

Banquet 400 Victory Lane Nemechek celebrates the weekend sweep at Kansas Final laps Joe Nemechek takes the checkered flag at Kansas Speedway Chase Reaction Chase contenders review their runs at Kansas Hard hit Title hopes of Newman and Johnson take a hit at Kansas Minor setback Mark Martin avoids disaster after cutting a tire on Lap 141 Early Caution Sterling Marlin encounters clutch problems on Lap 4 •   Results •   Standings

He was lucky he didn't hit anything and luckier still no one hit him. But what made Busch's race championship material was the way his team handled that bit of adversity.

Busch fell back to 20th for the next restart, but the remaining 121 laps showed the character of the team and the driver, as he rallied to finish sixth.

"We avoided a big pitfall just trying to get our car to handle better," Busch said. "We tested here for two days and thought we had a great car. It was just very nervous around other cars with fresh tires, and that's just something we have to continue to work on.

"I knew at Kansas they have grass in the infield underneath the racetrack, and as soon as you hit that, it's just like hitting ice, and you end up in the inside fence, so I was very lucky to keep it on the racetrack. The damage was minimal as well as to the other competitors, so we got our fresh tires and (crew chief) Jimmy Fennig made that adjustment because I was still just trying to drive too loose of a car and away we went, but it is key to dodge an event like that today."

Busch, who has finished sixth or better in each of the first four Chase races, saw his points lead increase to 29 over Dale Earnhardt Jr. and 79 over Jeff Gordon.

"It feels very good to be able to be ahead by what I'm looking at is four points, but those four are just one position out on the racetrack next week," said Busch, referring to the 25-point penalty of Earnhardt Jr. "We've got our work to do. Charlotte is a great track for us to attack and try to run good on. With the way the 48 runs there, that's the guy that we're going to be looking at next week. He's very competitive and very fast.

"It's a feather in the crew's hat to know that we're a championship contender. We are leading by a legitimate four points -- 29 as it stands -- so it's something to where we want to beat him on the racetrack and not have that circumstance that came up last week affect anything in the future."

Had the caution flags came in a different order, Greg Biffle might have been the guy celebrating in Victory Lane. Biffle had one of the strongest cars, leading four times for 64 laps -- second only to Jeremy Mayfield's 72 laps led.

Biffle wound up third Sunday at Kansas. Credit: Autostock

"My car was a little bit too tight, and I hadn't run in traffic all day, except for about three-quarters of the way through a tire run when my car was balanced pretty good and everybody was real tight and then I'd get into lapped traffic," Biffle said. "When I ended up starting 15th on the grid (for a late caution), I should have freed my car up a little bit so I could cut down toward the bottom.

"I used up a lot of tires trying to get by the lapped cars and trying to get by like the first six, eight guys until I got up to Kurt. Then once I got by Kurt and got in some clean air I could run down those guys, but the car, I just used up a lot of the front tires. I was a little bit tight to catch them, but I think given maybe six more laps, they probably would have been in trouble."

His third-place finish was Biffle's best of the season -- minus the victory at Michigan -- but Biffle wanted more.

"Yeah, I mean, I don't want to act like a baby, but I am disappointed bad," Biffle said. "I'm pouting about it, but that's the way it is. It's not very often that you get a race like that where you're just gone all day long. I mean, it just runs like that all day long and then for something to happen and not win, it just burns.

"It's acid in your stomach. It's unfortunate, but those are just the cards we were dealt today. We just couldn't make it and that's the way it goes sometime."

Dale Jarrett has a unique perspective as to why television ratings have been down slightly compared to 2003.

Dale Jarrett finished eighth Sunday at Kansas. Credit: Autostock

"The sport is pretty popular, and it's not like we're off a lot to start with," Jarrett said. "We have a huge fan base as it is. Maybe it was a little unrealistic for it to grow that much more. Sure, that would be nice, but we may have come close to kind of our limit, especially in a situation in a time of year when we have Major League Baseball right now, the playoffs are there, the NFL started up and in just a couple of weeks the NBA is gonna be starting.

"So you've got a lot of competition for the sports fan and I think we have to be careful. Sure, we would always like to have more viewers, but I think we have quite a few as it is. If you put it in comparison, if we had 15 races on a weekend like the NFL has 15 games, then, yeah, I think we may have to look at trying to get more viewers, but I personally am not concerned.

"I don't run the networks, though. That's their business."

Tony Stewart has some property in central Indiana, near his hometowns of Columbus and Rushville, where he goes to relax. Indiana is full of farmland, but Stewart's land is hardly used for a farm.

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"I don't have any animals on the farm," Stewart said. "I've been working on a lake. I've got a 10-acre lake on it. I'm kind of weird, I guess. When I bought the house I grew up in years ago, the first thing I did was spend a week and a half straight working on a race shop that my dad and I race go-karts out of and never even touched the house.

"It's kind of the same thing out there. I've not done anything to the house. All I've done is worry about making a really killer fishing lake out there. We've had construction crews out there for three months now working on this lake.

"When they know I'm coming home, they don't book a guy to come in. They always leave a spot open, and I'll work whatever piece of machinery they need me to work on on Monday. That's a good enough release for me. That's like a vacation for me to be able to do that."

Engineers are usually innovative, and Ryan Newman is no different. Before he got into NASCAR, Newman and his dad, Greg, would use a tricky way to get into Daytona.

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"(We) realized after seeing people in the stands on Thursday what we needed for Friday, Saturday and Sunday to get in," Newman said. "We went to get some construction paper and basically matched the color up to what it needed to be and overlapped some paper and made it look like a credential, and it usually got us in."

That's pretty sneaky.

"It was a unique deal, but it was cool," Newman said. "I'm not suggesting that anybody does that."