Busch hopes Pocono poor performances turn around

LONG POND, Pa. -- So far so good.

All is well in the mountains of Pocono for Kyle Busch, who has yet to have a pleasant experience at the so-called "tricky triangle."

Pocono 500

Lineup

Pos.	Driver	Make
1.	Tony Stewart	Chevrolet
2.	Jeff Gordon	Chevrolet
3.	Jimmie Johnson	Chevrolet
4.	Kurt Busch	Dodge
5.	Ryan Newman	Chevrolet
6.	Kyle Busch	Toyota
7.	Denny Hamlin	Toyota
8.	Matt Kenseth	Ford
9.	Greg Biffle	Ford
10.	Jeff Burton	Chevrolet

• Complete Lineup

The Joe Gibbs Racing driver is sixth in the Sprint Cup Series point standings heading into Sunday's Pocono 500. He stayed among the top-10 fastest drivers in Saturday's practice sessions and kept his car in one piece.

It's a significant improvement over his Pocono outing this time last year where the 24-year-old wrecked in practice and the following day in the race, as well producing the worst finish (43rd) of his season.

Perhaps an isolated incident, Busch returned to Pocono's second event two months later with optimism however futile. Running in the top five late in the race, Busch and his No. 18 crew ran out of gas with two laps to go and finished 36th.

Overall, in eight starts, Busch has led only two laps and posted his only top-five finish (fourth) in 2005 and only top-10 (seventh) in 2007.

Looking to set a new tone, Busch said he is pleased with his starting spot, sixth, for Sunday's race since the qualifying session was rained out. Beyond that, the driver is just playing it by ear but dolled out some blame for last year's dismal performances.

"When you think about Pocono, it was my fault, the spotter's [Jeff Dickerson] fault and then the crew chief's [Steve Addington] fault," Busch said. "The first race it was my fault because I wrecked in practice, and then I'm blaming Jeff for wrecking me on the front straightaway.

"The second race here we ran out of gas. I don't know if it was a miscalculation or if we weren't picking up all the fuel or whatever. We were running sixth or fourth maybe, I'm not even sure, with like four laps to go and we ran out of gas. We were going to run good. We thought we had enough gas to make it and for some reason we ran out with four to go. Unfortunately we didn't make it all the way."

Busch left Pocono following practice Saturday to make track activities for Nashville Superspeedway's 7:30 p.m. ET Nationwide Series race.

Last year, Busch, in an attempt to win in three different series in one weekend, also ran the Camping World Truck Series race at Texas Motor Speedway on Friday night.

This year he opted against the "triple," claiming he spread himself too thin that weekend. Busch is competing for a championship in both the Cup and Nationwide series so the driver said he has enough on his plate.

"We did it once and we saw how stupid it was so we're not doing it again," he said. "I'd do it, but man, by the time you come to Sunday you are just worn out, mentally. Physically I was fine, but mentally I was like, 'Gosh.' Then you run 500 miles here at this place and that really gets to you. No need to run the Truck race."