Talented Busch easily irked by poor driving around him

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Kyle Busch walked fast, as if the harder he dug his heels into the asphalt, the quicker he strode, the farther he could distance himself from the frustration that was his weekend at Daytona International Speedway.

Boos and catcalls rained down from fans perched high above on the Fan Deck, which allows them unprecedented access to the players of the Sprint Cup Series and permitted unrelenting verbal abuse to be thrust upon the burning Busch.

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The anxious media followed in his wake, trying to keep up. But when he finally stopped to answer questions, Busch was in no better mood than he had been most of the past three days he spent in the stock-car racing capital of the world.

In fact, his mood was darker. He was furious with Dale Earnhardt Jr. for what he saw as a foolish attempt to pass Brian Vickers when both racers were a lap off the pace in Sunday's Daytona 500.

They got together, and Busch's No. 18 Toyota was one of several cars caught up in the subsequent melee. When it was over, so was Busch's once-promising day -- and Busch was left wagging an accusing finger at Earnhardt.

"One guy that had problems all day on pit road made his problems our problems, and then our problems a big problem," Busch said, referring to Earnhardt. "It was just unfortunate with that, and it was really uncalled for to have two lapped cars to be racing each other and bumping each other like that.

"You'll have that, I guess, in big-time auto racing."

What he really meant

Busch said that, but didn't mean it. He is so immensely talented that he doesn't appear to understand when others fail to match his talent level or his laser-like focus on winning races.

Earnhardt has displayed his own considerable talent at times in the sport, but Sunday wasn't one of them. And after watching Earnhardt wander aimlessly down pit road, searching in vain for a pit stall that he wouldn't find on the first pass during a scheduled stop on Lap 56, to say he currently seems to lack laser-like focus is a massive understatement.

It's more like, on Sunday at least, Earnhardt lacked the focus and sensibility of someone who might drive instead in a soap-box derby.

Busch was ticked at Earnhardt, and rightly so. Earnhardt appeared to be driving too aggressively in an effort to get a lap back that he had lost because of his own mistake that he made -- twice, in fact -- on pit road.

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(In addition to the first inexplicable mistake, Earnhardt also later pitted outside his box and received a one-lap penalty for that).

"It is what it is," Busch said. "I'm not going to change anything now. It's just unfortunate that a guy that's messed up his whole day on pit road and screwed up, that he has to make our day worse.

"It wasn't our problem that he was a lap down and fighting with another lapped car. I don't even know what they were fighting for because the outside lane [of other cars] was coming. Those [two] cars should have sat there and waited and got back in line when they could."

Why he's upset

Matt Kenseth went on to win Sunday's rain-shortened 500. But Busch had the best car, leading a race-high 88 of the 123 laps he completed before the accident that took him out.

Anyone who has ever paid any attention at all to NASCAR knows that the best car doesn't always win. But Busch truly thought he was going to pull it off.

Asked how big of a mistake he thought Earnhardt made, Busch said: "It looked pretty big to me. It cost the winning car the chance to win the race."

Asked how confident he was that he was the driver of that would-have-been, could-have-been, should-have-been winning car, Busch added: "One hundred percent."

Pressed for more, he explained: "I think we were the best car out there. Us, the 24 [of Jeff Gordon] was strong, the 11 [of Denny Hamlin] was strong, and a couple of other guys we were battling with. But I felt like our car was the car to beat. We were awfully good and just running out front and biding our time. I don't think we fell worse than sixth or fifth the whole time. It's just really a sad feeling."

The morose ending to his Sunday evening came on the heels of a close loss to winner Tony Stewart in Saturday's Nationwide Series race, and yet another second-place finish to winner Todd Bodine in Friday's Camping World Truck Series event.

On Sunday, he finished 41st. But Busch made it sound like there wasn't much difference between second and 41st. He considers both of them losing propositions.

"I was frustrated going into this race, so this is about a 15 on a 10 scale," Busch said. "You're not happy until you get to Victory Lane."

Or at least Kyle Busch isn't. Earlier in the weekend, Busch already seemed to have run out of patience answering many of the same questions he had been repeatedly asked during the offseason.

You know, the ones about how he was so hot at the beginning of last year and how in the heck did he lose it when it came to competing in the all-important, season-ending Chase?

The real pros in the sport answer most of those questions patiently and politely no matter how many times they're asked. That's not necessarily Busch's style.

Off the track, then, he's still often rough around the edges and not always pleasant to be around. But when it comes to driving on the race track, Busch's style these days seems a whole lot smoother than the much more popular Earnhardt's.

The opinions expressed are solely of the writer.