Notes: Gale gets big start at home track of Talladega

Nothing like a little pressure to top off a homecoming.

Cale Gale comes to Talladega Superspeedway as the lone driver for Kevin Harvick Inc., a team owned by the two-time series champion and his wife, DeLana.

Fast facts

What	Aaron's 312
When	Green, 3:20 p.m. ET Saturday
TV	ABC, 2:30 p.m. ET
Radio	MRN (Sirius Ch. 28), 3 p.m. ET

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Normally at a companion event, Harvick is behind the wheel of one of the team's two cars in the Nationwide Series race. Only twice this season has Gale competed with Harvick.

But at Talladega, it's the 23-year-old Mobile, Ala., native all by his lonesome. Driving for the team that won this race last year. With its second car in the runner-up position. In front of his home crowd.

"Obviously I do put a little added pressure on myself since I am from Alabama," Gale said. "The last person from Alabama to win at Talladega was Davey Allison, so to be in good equipment and have a shot is pretty cool.

"KHI won this race last year with Bobby [Labonte] and Tony [Stewart] finished second. That's more pressure on me because we're returning with only one car this time."

Gale is scheduled to compete in 14 races for KHI this season, sharing time with his boss and also with defending Truck Series champion Ron Hornaday, to gain knowledge and experience. He's run three races thus far and his last outing was a successful one -- he finished a career-best eighth at Nashville Superspeedway in March.

"This is the same car Kevin ran at Daytona [finishing 21st] and since then, [we've] worked hard to improve [it] before heading back to the superspeedways," Gale said. "The main thing is to stay in line, hang in the draft and hopefully have a shot at the end of the day."

Busch takes aim at Ard

What more can Kyle Busch do for an encore?

He's been pretty successful in his follow-up work since winning three weeks ago at Texas Motor Speedway. Since that victory, Busch has posted two more wins -- at Phoenix International Raceway and last Sunday at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.

Not only has Busch -- who is in the top 10 in the standings in each of NASCAR's national series -- won three in a row for the first time since Ryan Newman in 2005, but he's shown his talent and versatility off the same way Newman did.

Like Newman, Busch accumulated his wins on totally different tracks -- the intermediate and racy venue at Texas; the one-mile short track at Phoenix and the winding road course in Mexico City.

He has two top-fives in four series races at Talladega, but was 39th last year after an early accident.

The only series driver to win four races in succession is Sam Ard. The two-time series champion did so in 1983. Three of Ard's four consecutive wins were on short tracks while one was an intermediate-track victory. (Continued)