He's back in the Busch Series, a place he calls home because of the comfort level of his team and the relationships he and his family built there. He's back with the very team he left midway through the 2004 season for what he thought was greener pastures. He's back in Nashville this weekend, a place he grew up, watched his father build a team from scratch, watched his dad die and now watches as an ongoing power struggle plays out over control of that very Truck Series team.

Bobby Hamilton Jr. is exactly where he wants to be. Yet nothing is the same.

"I am having fun," Hamilton said this week as he prepares for the biggest race of his season, the Pepsi 300 at Nashville Superspeedway (3 p.m. ET, ESPN2). "I'm having fun as far as being back with [team owners] Ed Rensi and Ronnie Russell and all those guys, and being back in the Busch Series, and I almost feel like a lot of people want to be back in there, and that's where I want to be."

Fun is a loose term for Hamilton. Saturday's race will mark three months to the day that Hamilton's father, Bobby Hamilton, died of head and neck cancer. Since then Hamilton has virtually cut all ties with his family's team, save for partial ownership that he's trying to sell. He's put all his focus on driving, something he's not been able to do since walking away from Team Rensi nearly three years ago to accept a Cup ride with owner Cal Wells.

Now he's back with Rensi, a deal that began in a Red Lobster in Daytona, of all places. And he's driving the same car amid one of the toughest times in the series' history -- a time when stand-alone Busch teams struggle to exist while Cup-affiliated programs win each week and dominate the standings despite a partial schedule.

"That's the biggest change," Hamilton said in looking back to his last season in Busch. "They get four or five hours of practice a weekend; we only get two. And those guys are the same guys that practice right up to the point of our race, get out of their Cup driver suit, run right over there, put on their Busch driver suit, jump in a racecar. They already know the track, know what to expect for that day, and we haven't been on it in 24 to 36 hours.

"It's a big disadvantage on several things. All you can do is be the top-running Busch car every week as far as a normal Busch guy, and if you are that, then you can start working on other stuff as far as learning how to beat those guys." (Continued)