Right or wrong, it's good to have bad boy Busch here

CONCORD, N.C. -- If it's true that every sport needs a bad guy, real or perceived, then things are really looking up in the Sprint Cup Series.

Tony Stewart appears to be turning nice. Jeff Gordon no longer gets booed with the same gusto as in the past. Other former bad boys, such as Darrell Waltrip, have long since retired.

A void was forming.

In a split second at Richmond International Raceway last Saturday night, Kyle Busch filled it. He went from being the Happy Gilmore of Sprint Cup racing to something far more sinister -- at least in the angry eyes of the legions of fans of the most popular driver on the Cup circuit. Racing for the lead with two laps remaining in the scheduled 400-lap event, Busch and Dale Earnhardt Jr. bumped and banged until Busch eventually turned Earnhardt around and sent Earnhardt's chances of ending a 71-race winless streak spinning into oblivion.

Thousands upon thousands of Earnhardt fans in attendance howled in protest. Others no doubt unwisely hurled 12-ounce projectiles at their television sets. Kyle Busch's name was widely cursed throughout this land.

Roughly 36 hours later, they were both on hand for Cup testing at Lowe's Motor Speedway, just outside Charlotte. As a joke -- or at least it was taken as a joke -- Humpy Wheeler, president and general manager of Lowe's Motor Speedway, sent a security detail of three into the media center when Busch was scheduled to answer questions about the incident.

Three? Saturday night it looked like 30 might be a better number to ensure Busch's safety.

Meanwhile, about 30 minutes earlier, Earnhardt broke his silence on the matter and said a few words after his handlers earlier had insisted that he would not speak about it until Thursday evening at Darlington Raceway, where the series heads next. It seemed Earnhardt wanted to talk about it Monday because he wanted to diffuse the situation. As often is the case with Earnhardt on the track and off, he also sought the high road.

"It was just hard racing," Earnhardt said. "Kyle has his style of driving. Maybe I went at it as hard as he did; I don't know what I would have done. I took him out at Kansas during the Chase [last year], and that's really why I wouldn't be any more vocal or angry about it -- because I would have been hypocritical about it, in that sense.

"We've both been on each side of it now between the two of us, and hopefully once him and I have a chance to talk about it, we can come to some kind of understanding to where we don't ever have to deal with it again, where we just go out and race and try to race each other with a little more respect and have a little better outcome." (Continued)