Jeff Gordon knows what Kyle Busch is going through this weekend at Las Vegas. Credit: Autostock

Notes: Gordon pumps up teammate Busch

LAS VEGAS -- Jeff Gordon's Hendrick Motorsports teammate, Kyle Busch, has been under a lot of scrutiny this season for some driving decisions.

But this weekend at his home racetrack -- Las Vegas Motor Speedway -- Busch has been third and first in two practices and he qualified his No. 5 Chevrolet fourth for Sunday's UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400.

	Credit: Autostock
	Happy Hour Speeds UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 Pos. Driver Speed 1. Kyle Busch 170.089 2. Matt Kenseth 169.646 3. Kurt Busch 168.988 4. Carl Edwards 168.845 5. Jeff Burton 168.787 Complete speeds, click here

Gordon's won at his birth home racetrack, Infineon Raceway and his adopted home racetrack, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, so he knows what Busch is feeling.

"I think you're excited because you know you've got people pulling for you," Gordon said. "I think it helps more than it hurts. Yeah, there's pressure, but there's pressure everywhere."

Gordon thinks Busch should keep his head up and keep on getting it.

"He's an aggressive young driver, and that's what's gotten him where he is," Gordon said. "He's just got to learn all that he can to be more patient when he needs to be more patient but to keep that aggressiveness going for him as well.

"He's a great talent. He's just got to bottle it up and to make sure he uses it at the right time."

Biffle wants California rerun - sort of

Greg Biffle led the most laps in the last Nextel Cup race, at California Speedway, but lost an engine late in the race. After winning the Bud Pole at Las Vegas, he was asked if Sunday's race was going to be "California, Part II?"

"I hope it is, other than the 24 laps to go part, but we'll see," Biffle said. "It looks like on the speed chart there's a couple of guys on the lap-to-lap tracker that are faster than us."

Biffle cited Kasey Kahne -- Saturday's Busch Series winner -- as one of his main concerns.

"[Kahne's] is the fastest car here," Biffle said. "If something doesn't happen to his car or he blows the right-front tire and hits the fence, then he might be the car to beat on Sunday [at least] it looks like, so far."

Biffle said his Roush Racing team had also diagnosed his engine failure.

"It broke an intake valve spring," Biffle said. "They did a metallurgy test, an x-ray on the material and it had a pin hole in the material, an air pocket in the valve spring itself.

"It was bad material. They took Carl's [teammate Edwards] engine, and we have what's called a spin tron, which simulates a lap and they put Carl's valve train on the spin tron and ran it another 1,000 miles and nothing failed.

"We can make it accelerate, decelerate -- like it's making laps. The engine thinks it's making laps, it doesn't know any difference and it went another 1,000 miles with no failure.

"That's what we try to do. We try to make our engines go twice the distance of the race without a failure. So, it was just material, and that's going to happen."

Vegas weather leaves some cold

Las Vegas has seen a wide -- and wild variation in temperatures and precipitation -- from a snow shower Friday evening to rainfall on Saturday. And temperatures ranged from above 60 to less than 40.

To some degree it's got teams guessing about Sunday.

"It has changed the track some," Elliott Sadler said after he qualified 26th. "We are trying to guess what it's going to be like Sunday. We think it's going to be a little bit the same as it [was Friday], or a little cooler Sunday.

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"So we're trying to make the guess on that now to make sure that we're going to be okay. But, it was a lot different here testing, so we've just got to build some adjustments in and we should be fine."

Las Vegas native Kurt Busch qualified seventh but was no happier about the conditions.

"It'll make the track a little slicker and we'll have to make sure we don't start out too aggressive on a green-flag run," Busch said. "This race is a bummer, man. It's had 85-degree days and 70-degree days.

"If you throw the average out, it's been 50 for this race. It's a bummer it's been this cold for this race as many years as it has. I guess a cold track favors the drivers because we're sitting in a warm cockpit.

"I just wish it was better weather for the fans. The wind, you just have to make sure you don't overdrive the corner when you have a tailwind. That can happen sometimes when you just get in the corner too hot because you've got all that tailwind."

Mears celebrates birthday

Casey Mears is enjoying his best start to a Cup season, and he hopes to cap his 28th birthday Sunday with a special celebration.

"I think everybody knows what I want for my birthday [so] I'm going to knock on wood," Mears said. "Having a win here at Vegas would be a great birthday present.

"I know we can get the job done. We've just got to focus on not doing anything wrong."

Newman checks out

Ryan Newman has finished in the top 10 three times in five Las Vegas starts, with a best of fourth in 2002. Only three times in eight races has the winner here led less than 82 laps.

Newman was asked why a Las Vegas-type track seems to favor someone hitting the set-up and leaving the field in their dust.

"You mean like the Roush cars?" Newman asked. "The Roush cars are strong right now, especially at these types of racetracks.

"In general, this is kind of a unique track. Even Kansas, which is kind of like it, isn't really like it. Looking at it, they look very similar, but they're not.

"Things are just a little different out here. Maybe it's because of the weather and stuff like that."