Daytona was the Super Bowl. Then followed Fontana, Las Vegas and Atlanta. ... Now comes "racin' the way it ought'a be," according to the best public relations staff in NASCAR.

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Bristol Motor Speedway -- the "Holy Grail of Motorsports," as touted by the East Tennessee track -- is 0.533 miles of fender rubbin', bumper bangin', get-your-feelings-hurt-in-a-hurry racing that compares to nothing else on the 22-track schedule.

And while 410 drivers have started a Cup Series race at Bristol, only a few have mastered the track. Darrell Waltrip has a Cup Series-best 12 victories, including seven in a row from 1981-84, while Dale Earnhardt, Rusty Wallace and Cale Yarborough each went to Victory Lane nine times.

Points leader Jeff Gordon and Kurt Busch, in third place, are separated by only 46 points through four races -- and now return to a track where both have enjoyed a lot of success. Among active drivers, Gordon and Busch lead the pack with five victories, tied with David Pearson for third on the track's all-time wins list.

Gordon, a four-time Cup Series champion, is mired in a 45-race winless streak. However, his average finish through four races is 5.75, including two second-place finishes. While it may be a matter of time before he returns to Victory Lane, the next two weeks provide a lot of hope for the No. 24 team; 12 of Gordon's 81 wins have come at Bristol and Martinsville.

In 16 races at Bristol, Busch has five wins -- his only top-five finishes -- and nine top-10s. But it's his first race at the famed bullring that stands out in his mind.

"There was definitely a learning curve for me at Bristol," Busch said. "All you have to do is go back and look at my first Cup race at Bristol back in 2001. It wasn't pretty. As a matter of fact, it was downright ugly. The first time I crashed that day, it was on my on. The second time I wrecked, I was in a big pileup. I guess you could say that the third time was the charm, in that we punctured the radiator in that crash.

"That put us out for good," he added. "They just kept on fixing it and putting me back out there to get track time. When we were finally done for the day, I looked up on the board and there were still about 400 laps of racing left. They didn't have the tunnel down in the third turn at the time, so I was forced to sit there and watch all the others go at it for another three hours.

"I promised myself that day a situation like that would never happen again. It became a necessity in my mind to become a good racer at Bristol. I guess I've done a pretty decent job at accomplishing that goal." In fact, he went on to win four of his next six starts at Bristol.

"I looked at guys like Darrell and Rusty and saw just how much they genuinely enjoyed each and every time the circuit raced at Bristol," Busch said. "Having a positive attitude about racing there is so important at Bristol and we normally always have that going for us when we get there.

"As far as the strategy behind my success, I learned from the very first race that you have to be around at the finish to do well at Bristol. It really is a situation of surviving the first 400 laps -- keeping the fenders on the thing and staying out of the wall. Then, if you're in good shape after four-fifths of the race, it's time to really get down to business during the final 100 laps."