The 2004 season of the NASCAR Cup Collection was the primary working of “The Chase,” forerunner of in the present day’s playoff format. The ten-race brawl making up that first Chase was fought out between Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Mark Martin after which 26-year-old, fourth-year Cup racer Kurt Busch. With a fifth-place end within the ultimate spherical at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Busch took residence the title, a reminiscence he savors 20 years on.
“I feel it’s applicable to look again on it being 20 years in the past and round this time of yr once I was capable of win the championship in NASCAR,” displays Busch. “In 2004 it was only a entire new revolutionizing kind of yr, with Nextel being the sponsor of the entitlement. Winston was gone after which having a brand new sequence level construction… I imply, it was an unimaginable time to be a part of the game.”
What positioned Busch on a trajectory in the direction of that championship day was incomes a spot within the Roush Racing ‘Gong Present’ in 1999. Rookie of the Yr within the 1998 NASCAR AutoZone Southwest Collection, Busch bought the Gong Present invite, and after excelling, received a Craftsman Truck Collection job. Within the No. 99 Roush Racing Ford F-150, Busch was the championship runner-up within the 2000 Truck Collection.
Gong Present success earned Kurt Busch the prospect to earn his NASCAR wings within the Truck Collection. Right here he will get a lesson in bump drafting from Mike Wallace. Phil Abbott/Motorsport Photographs
“Operating and profitable the Southwest Tour Championship in 1999, that type of put some eyeballs on me,” says Busch. “1999 was a banner yr that helped me get to the Gong Present, which was named after a TV present from the Nineteen Seventies. There have been 5 of us. There was the Northwest Tour champion. I used to be the Southwest Tour champion. There was any person from the Goody’s Sprint Collection. There have been Modified racers. It was actually cool.
“There was a Gong Present tryout in Toledo, Ohio. That was a tricky little and imply half-mile. After which there was a second tryout. It was like they weren’t fairly satisfied on who was the highest canine. The second tryout was in Phoenix. I had a number of laps round that monitor with my Southwest Tour automobile, so I felt actually assured going into the second Gong Present. On the first one, I used to be so nervous. I used to be the quickest, however I blew the tires off the poor truck. So the second time round, I used to be far more calm. I felt like, ‘The cellphone is ringing, and there may be gonna be different alternatives to presumably make my approach up.’ I used to be actually relaxed on the second tryout, and that helped my efficiency. It was a standout efficiency.
“So I received the Gong Present, and I’m going to Daytona to race in my first-ever Truck race, and I wrecked about 100 totally different occasions and nonetheless one way or the other completed second. I then settled in with the Vans. I imply, we nearly received Mesa Marin in our fourth race collectively. I received Milwaukee in in July of that yr for my first win within the Truck Collection, and on the finish of the day, with 4 wins, 4 poles and we have been second in factors to my teammate Greg Biffle. That was a kind of dynasty-type years that you simply felt was occurring. It felt like Greg and I went to the monitor each week and it appeared prefer it was a one-two end. It made it a lot enjoyable to be taught all of it and to be within the skilled aspect of it.”
“I received the Gong Present in July, after which in August, Jack Roush says to me, ‘Hey, you wish to go Cup racing?’ That was actually one among my first sit-downs with Jack and I used to be simply floored. I used to be simply beside myself and going, ‘I simply got here out of principally a Legends automobile final August, and also you’re asking me to do a Cup race. Man, I’m prepared for those who’re prepared, however we’re most likely gonna wreck some s***.’
Kurt Busch and Jimmy Fennig, pictured right here in 2002, rapidly constructed an efficient rapport.
Robert LeSieur/Motorsport Photographs
“And that is what Jack Roush mentioned to me: ‘I’d slightly you make errors on the prime stage than be right here within the Vans for one more yr or within the Busch [now Xfinity] Collection for one more yr. I’d slightly you make errors on the prime stage.’ And away we went. It was simply such a quick transition from being an area racer in 1998 to being within the Cup Collection in 2000.
“It was a chance of a lifetime. What was I speculated to say as a 22-year-old? ‘No, I don’t wish to go to the Cup Collection?’ I knew it was too quickly, and I appeared as much as guys like Jeff Gordon and Ron Hornaday Jr., who had simply made it from the West Coast. The West Coast doorways have been extensive open on the time. And you recognize, I did OK in my rookie yr in Cup.”
By 2002 the Las Vegas native was established on the highest stage of the game and, teaming up with crew chief Jimmy Fennig, managed to tug down his first win at Bristol in March. But it surely was the next yr that issues actually began to click on
“2003 appeared like we have been working so sturdy on the large tracks,” Busch remembers. “That’s when the coil binding period of NASCAR was beginning to pop up as the first solution to set automobiles up. At Roush, we had all of the groups working as exhausting as we might to determine the setups for coil binding. We discovered a system that labored, and it simply made us constant. We have been constant and proper within the sport each week.
“2003 is when the game slowed down for me. I might really feel the automobile and I couldn’t get so anxious and nervous about sure conditions and I might make clear, good passes. That additionally made me extra assured with the media — and that backfired. 2003 was most likely additionally my hardest yr with totally different rival drivers, getting in hassle with the media or no matter it might have been. I mentioned to myself, ‘I would like to dam the media aspect of this out. I have to turn into extra skilled, and I have to hold the identical focus with the automobile that principally has us working a prime 5 each week.’
Busch felt the game slowed down for him in 2003, whereas he sped up dueling the likes of Jimmie Johnson. Motorsport Photographs
“That’s what led to 2004. It was a pleasant psychological reset of figuring out that I used to be beginning to grasp the automobiles, grasp the setups, after which me and Jimmy Fennig, as soon as they introduced the brand new level system, we sat down on Jan. 1 and had a sport plan all the best way to Homestead that yr.
“2004 was really only a magical yr. The way in which the season began, our total sport plan was to be an underdog and to be form of a sleeper crew, and a few of that was to avoid wasting our check classes again within the day. You used to have the ability to decide 5 or 6 or seven tracks to go and check at throughout the weeks of the season. However for those who used them up early within the yr, you didn’t have them later within the yr. We used all of our setups for 2003 to start out, after which because the season went on, after all, we have been advancing. We have been working proper in the course of the highest 10.”
The September race at New Hampshire Worldwide Speedway began the title run for Busch, Fennig and the Roush Racing crew.
“We began testing proper earlier than the playoffs began. We began at New Hampshire, Dover, Kansas, Charlotte, Homestead and Martinsville,” Busch relates. “We have been in every single place and we labored exhausting. It was so aggravating, although. That was the one factor we didn’t see coming. It was the additional check classes and nonetheless working up entrance within the factors within the playoffs.
“We received the first-ever NASCAR playoff race in Loudon and we set the tone. We have been like, ‘OK, we’re completed being the underdogs. We’re right here for the for the present.’
