Kurt Busch Brings New Weapon to Hometown Battle

Which of NASCAR's Busch brothers has found more success at their hometown race track?

Decidedly, it's Kyle, the kid brother of 2004 Sprint Cup champion Kurt Busch, who has done better on the 1.5-mile oval of Las Vegas Motor Speedway. And he's the defending champion of Sunday's Shelby American Sprint Cup race after winning this race last year by almost a half second over Clint Bowyer.

But it's Kurt who will first see Sunday's green flag posting the quickest time during Friday's Sprint Cup qualifying session to earn the pole position. And he also holds a key in his back pocket that Kyle may wish he still had for the annual visit to Sin City.

Steve Addington, now the crew chief on Kurt's No. 2 Penske Racing Dodge, was instrumental in Kyle's victory last year when he was serving as crew chief of Kyle's No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.

In a champagne-soaked victory lane, Kyle tossed a big line of thanks to Addington for his role in helping Busch come from a back-of-the-pack starting spot to take the checkers in front of the home crowd.

"Steve Addington, I have to thank that guy," Busch said a year ago in victory lane. "He's the leader in this team, everybody believes in him -- I believe in him. As long as you have that everything seems to run smooth."



Later in the season, though, things stopped going smoothly between crew chief and driver, and Addington was reassigned to another role at JGR before being released altogether and moving on to Penske to become Kurt's crew chief for 2010.

His JGR relationship may be over, but Addington doesn't seem to have lost the touch at LVMS. Kurt proved that on Friday by winning the pole -- something that was slightly a surprise after the team spent much of Friday's practice working on race setup.

"An unexpected lap," Kurt said. "Looking back at some of the decisions Steve Addington made, just looking at our notebook, I'm following his direction on some of the key things that maybe I've been missing in COT."

The COT, of course, is NASCAR's "Car of Tomorrow" chassis introduced in 2007. Friday's pole was Kurt's first with the new car.

"The biggest step for us to make as a team is the driver-crew-chief combination," Kurt said. "And the trust that (Addington) gave me today was really moving."

There was even a bit of sibling rivalry at play as Kurt's lap of 188.719 mph tore Kyle's previous track record lap of 185.995 mph to pieces.

Kyle, though, still holds his status as the best performing brother at their hometown track. In 6 races, the younger Busch has last year's win, two poles and just one finish outside of the top-15.

In nine races at LVMS, the elder Busch (it's roughly a seven-year difference) has managed just one top-5, while enduring two DNFs and an average finish of 20th. He's certainly he's hoping to reverse that Sunday with the help of Addington, who has now won the last three poles at the track.

"Kyle's had great success here at Vegas and now I've got the right guy in my camp," Kurt said on Friday. "Steve Addington's definitely has his game on at this track, so I just hope this bleeds over to Sunday."