Kurt Busch Quickly Reminds NASCAR That on the Track, He Has Limitless Talent

NASCAR may have suspended Kurt Busch for the first three races of the season, but there’s no suspending his talent.

In his first two races back following his reinstatement, Busch has finished fifth and third, and he came just one lap short of winning Sunday’s Auto Club 400 at Auto Club Speedway.

With those two finishes, Busch has made a very noteworthy statement—not about the off-track troubles he’s endured over the last few months, but rather that the best way for him to get past everything, to move on and move forward, is to do what he does best: get behind the wheel of a race car.

I’ve always said that a focused Kurt Busch is the most dangerous Kurt Busch on a race track—in a good way, that is. If his mind is solely 100 percent on the race and not distracted by off-track issues, he is as good as anyone on any given race day.

The problem is that Busch has had a lot of distractions over the years that have cut into his focus. Some of those distractions have been created by him, most notably due to his temper.

And then there was the most recent episode of an off-track incident severely impacting his on-track status.

Only months after finishing his first season at Stewart-Haas Racing, one that saw him win at Martinsville and qualify for the Chase for the Sprint Cup, allegations of domestic abuse against his former girlfriend, Patricia Driscoll—and a subsequent investigation—came to the forefront.

And while the fallout from the Driscoll situation—both in the courts and in NASCAR—was significant, the only way Busch will be able to overcome his woes is to put his best effort forward on the track.

Just like he has the last two weeks and, in particular, Sunday at Fontana.

Busch was set to enjoy perhaps one of the greatest weekends of his Sprint Cup career. Not only did he win the pole, but he also was the fastest driver in all three Cup practices at Auto Club Speedway. You could see it in his eyes and hear it in his words: Busch was a walking, talking picture of focus.

And had it not been for the second late-race caution that brought about one last restart, Busch very well could have won Sunday’s race.

In the end, Busch’s failure to win came down to tires. On the second-to-last caution, he and SHR teammate Kevin Harvick both went with two tires. Meanwhile, Brad Keselowski and crew chief Paul Wolfe both elected to go with four tires on the same stop.

It was a gamble. Keselowski dropped from sixth to 17th as pit stops cycled through.

But that gamble ultimately paid off.

Keselowski roared from 17th to eighth place in less than a lap. And when the final caution period followed, he was in the catbird seat on the final restart as well. Ergo, Harvick and Busch were all but helpless to stave off Keselowski’s better rubber and faster car.

End of story, end of race—and both Harvick and Busch came up short to Keselowski, finishing second and third, respectively.

But in a way, it's not the end of the story for Busch. In a sense, it's just the beginning. Busch now returns to Martinsville Speedway this coming weekend, the site of his last Sprint Cup victory a year ago.

Still, while he would have liked the win Sunday, Busch had nothing to be ashamed of for falling short at the start-finish line.

“It was a solid day,” Busch said in a Chevrolet media relations transcript. “I don’t know what we could have done different. We just got pinned in by the yellows and the sequence at the end on which tires we needed to have to optimize how many laps were left. We had two tires; (Brad) Keselowski had four. We didn’t need that extra yellow at the end and I just got out muscled by Keselowski.”

Don Petersen/Associated Press

Can he repeat last year’s success at Martinsville? Anything is possible.

One other thing to note after Sunday's race is that Busch has climbed to 28th place in the Sprint Cup standings. By comparison, Busch’s teammate, Tony Stewart—who recorded his best finish of a very challenging season thus far (14th) on Sunday—is ranked 32nd in the Sprint Cup standings, 20 points behind Busch.

And that’s after five races for Stewart, while Busch has needed just two races to rise to where he sits in the standings.

Another strong run at The Paperclip—and potentially another win—could vault Busch into the top- 5, if not the top 20, one week from now.

If Busch can show he can remain focused solely on his career, he may continue to draw more attention to himself—but this time for all the right reasons.

All quotes obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.

Follow me on Twitter @JerryBonkowski