Kyle Busch looking to turn poor Pocono trend around

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Kyle Busch is coming off two consecutive finishes outside the top 30 (Chicagoland and Indianapolis) -- something he did only once last season.

Busch started off the 2008 10-race Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup with finishes of 34th and 43rd, his worst two-race stretch of the season. But over the first 26 races, he was near flawless.

The current 2009 skid bounced Busch from the Sprint Cup Series top 12. He now sits 14th -- a stark contrast from last year when he held the points lead at this juncture (Busch was 253 points ahead of second-place Dale Earnhardt Jr. after 20 races in 2008).

Below are Busch's statistics through 20 races in 2008 and this season:

This weekend, Busch will try to end the slide in the Sunoco Red Cross Pennsylvania 500 at Pocono Raceway -- a track that has been unkind to him in the past.

In his nine-race Pocono career, Busch has only two top-10 finishes -- and five finishes outside the top 20 (including a 43rd-place finish in last season's June race). In terms of Driver Rating, it is his third-worst track. In terms of average finish, it's his fourth-worst:

Below is Busch's race-by-race log at Pocono, where he has led only two laps in his career, the fewest of any track in the series.

At Pocono, Busch has eclipsed the 100.0 Driver Rating barrier just once, in an eighth-place finish in 2007. His lowest Driver Rating was in June of 2008, when he scored at 26.8 (the lowest rating a driver can score is 23.3).