Want to work with Kyle? Then prepare to man up

BRISTOL, Tenn. -- Welcome to the newest reality series sweeping NASCAR: Kyle Busch's Tough Love.

It's not for the faint of heart. It will never be confused with NASCAR Angels. It's gritty, uncensored, and at times painful to watch. But it's never boring, as the events of this weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway will attest. After Nationwide and Sprint Cup events with starkly different outcomes for the Joe Gibbs Racing standard-bearer, one thing is clear -- working with the immensely talented, immensely confident and immensely demanding 23-year-old can be about as unforgiving as feeding sharks without the cage. There's always the risk of getting chewed up.

Busch beats Bristol

Kyle Busch has dominated Bristol before only to come up empty-handed. Not this time as he cruises to victory.

• Complete story
• Lap-by-Lap: Bristol
• Video: Final Laps
• Video: Victory Lane
• Video: Press Pass

Let's go to the videotape. In Saturday's episode the star of the show was about to win another Nationwide Series event, until he made a pit stop with 46 laps remaining. That's when a tire bounced off the concrete pit wall during and got away from his crew. Busch left the box with the tire still unsecured, earning him a stop-and-go penalty and eventual sixth-place finish. His displeasure was evident over the radio. "Y'all suck!" he chided his team before parking his car in Turn 3, right by the track's exit tunnel. Furious, he took off while his rebuked and bewildered crew was still trying to determine where the vehicle was.

It was all quite a cliffhanger, the drama leaving viewers wondering how Busch and his Sprint Cup crew -- which includes two members of the Nationwide team called out a day earlier -- would react once the main event went green before a sellout crowd of 160,000 fans. Would hard feelings carry over? Would they give him too much wedge on purpose? Slip water into his fuel cell? Instead they acted like consummate professionals, finding themselves in almost the exact same situation the Nationwide crew had been in a day earlier, and turning in a stop that propelled the No. 18 car to its second victory of the year. (Continued)