Busch runs well at Bristol, now he has momentum

Kyle Busch's amazing adventure through NASCAR can reach another milestone Saturday at Bristol Motor Speedway.

If Busch, 22, wins the Sharpie Mini 300 Nationwide race, he will have victories in each of NASCAR's top three series for the fourth consecutive year. Two other drivers have accomplished the feat but just once each -- Kevin Harvick in 2003 and Terry Labonte in 1995.

Fast Facts

What	Sharpie Mini 300
When	2 p.m. ET Saturday
TV	ESPN2
Radio	PRN / Sirius Ch. 128

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"Bristol Motor Speedway is one of my favorite tracks," said Busch, who won the Sprint Cup and Craftsman Truck races last weekend in Atlanta. "It seems like Bristol is one of those tracks you either love or hate, and fortunately for me, I've had some success here, so I'm one of the drivers that love it."

Busch has finished in the top 10 in six of his seven Nationwide appearances at Bristol including a win in 2006. He's also the defending Sprint Cup event winner this weekend. Busch enters Saturday's race with the top driver rating at the track (110.9) and first in average running position (10.1) for races dating back to 2005.

Busch will drive the No. 32 Braun Racing Toyota at Bristol, the same car he drove to a runner-up finish last month in California.

"We won the first COT race here last year and won a Nationwide Series race the year before that," Busch said. "The repaving they did last year really made for more side-by-side racing and made it a little easier to get by the lap cars. With any short track you struggle with the lap traffic getting in the way, but now that there is an additional racing groove, it's easier to get by.

"I've had some good runs in the Nationwide Series races so far this year, and we've been close to victory but haven't quite got there yet. I'm hoping this weekend we can get this monkey off our back."

Busch is third in the points standings, behind leader Kevin Harvick and defending Sharpie Mini 300 winner Carl Edwards. Harvick is tied with Morgan Shepherd for most Nationwide wins on the .533-mile track with four, and his driver rating is 106.9, second to Busch. Edwards is next at 103.1.

Two-time series champion Martin Truex Jr. will be making his second Nationwide start of the season, his first in the No. 5 JR Motorsports Chevrolet. He has one win at Bristol, which he scored in 2004 while driving for Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s co-owned Chance 2 Motorsports team.

"I'm really excited about driving Junior's Nationwide car at Bristol," Truex said. "We were talking on the Internet at the beginning of the year, and he said he was looking for someone to drive his car in a couple of Nationwide races. I told him I'd do it, and he said, 'Are you kidding?' I told him I was being serious, but we didn't talk about it again for a while, and I had kind of forgotten about it. He brought it up again a couple of weeks ago and asked me if I was still interested, and I told him I was. It's going to be a lot of fun."

Building from the ground up

Kevin Harvick finds himself in a familiar place, in an unfamiliar situation.

Four races into the Nationwide Series season, Harvick, a two-time series champion, is leading the standings. Only this time he is doing it for his own team -- Kevin Harvick Inc.

By the Numbers

Kelly Bires is excited and for good reason, he has three top-15 finishes so far this season and sits 10th in the Nationwide Series standings.

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Harvick has long had success in the Nationwide Series driving for Richard Childress Racing. The duo have accounted for 32 victories and two championships together in nine years.

This season, however, Harvick plans to run 22 races, all for KHI.

"I'm looking forward to the challenge of running my own cars and creating a little bit different challenge from all aspects," Harvick said. "I know what it's been like the last few years to be winning races and being competitive week-in and week-out and that's what we are shooting for."

This isn't the first time KHI is on top of the owners' point standings. Tony Stewart drove the No. 33 Chevrolet to Victory Lane in the 2005 and 2006 season openers at Daytona. However, this is the first time that Harvick sits in first as both driver and owner.

"We are certainly very proud of where our Nationwide Series program is headed," said DeLana Harvick, Kevin's wife and team co-owner. "We have been very fortunate to have some veteran drivers to help us along the way, but ultimately we knew that making the step toward week-in and week-out consistency, we needed Kevin.

"We took similar steps getting our Truck program up and running, and we feel like we have built a good foundation there, so our approach to our Nationwide program naturally would follow that model."

300 for Wallace

Bristol Motor Speedway has always held special meaning for the Wallace family. Rusty Wallace retired with nine career Cup Series wins at the track, his son Steve earned his first career pole during last year's Sharpie Mini 300 and youngest brother Kenny earned the fourth of nine career Nationwide Series wins at Bristol in 1994.

While middle-brother Mike Wallace has yet to win at the track, he will make his 300th career start this weekend, becoming only the 12th driver in series' history to hit that milestone.

Mike Wallace, who has four career victories, is appreciative of how his career has played out.

"It's great to think that I've been able to win races and have longevity that has brought me to this point," Wallace said. "There aren't that many drivers that make it this far in their driving careers, and I'm excited to make my 300th start.

"If it can't be Daytona, then it's got to be Bristol," Wallace said about the track at which he'll hit the 300-race mark. "My brothers have both won at Bristol, and I'd like to join that list."

NASCAR Media contributed to this report