Kurt Busch wins Atlanta NASCAR race

Call it NASCAR’s version of ‘sibling rivalry’.  A week after Kyle Busch won the NASCAR race in Las Vegas, his older brother Kurt Busch took the checkered flag at the Kobalt Tools 500 held at the Atlanta Motor Speedway on Sunday.  The Busch brothers have now won back-to-back races four times during their career, the most in NASCAR history.

Busch posted not only the most dominating run on the track Sunday, but one of his best showings in recent years.  He led 234 of 330 laps—more laps than he led all of last season when he won only one race.  A late caution flag bunched up the competitors at the end, and Busch held on for a .332 second victory over second place Jeff Gordon.  Carl Edwards finished third, perennial Atlanta frontrunner Kevin Harvick took fourth with Brian Vickers finishing in fifth place.

Kurt Busch has been overshadowed in recent years by younger brother Kyle, who finished 18^th on Sunday three laps down.  Kurt noted his brother’s recent success in his post race comments:

"I needed to hold up my end of the bargain with Kyle winning all the time. The kid has been dominant."

Team owner Roger Penske also expressed his pleasure at the win:

"We're back in business. His brother is a great driver, but there's not many people out there who can hold a candle to Kurt."

In a de facto NASCAR tradition, he thanked his pit crew and noted that he was more focused on the track rather than his fellow drivers on this day:  "I've got to thank my guys. This car was unbelievable. I guess good things come to those who wait. I just drove [against] the track, not the competition. We had strong pit stops, a great-handling car, a strong motor and a great assistant spotter."

After the race, Busch unveiled his new take on the victory lap when he drove around the track backwards using the rear view mirror to navigate.  He said that he dreamed it up ‘over a few beers’ and was something on a homage to the famed ‘Polish victory lap’ which was a trademark of the late, great Alan Kulwicki.  Kulwicki did his laps with the car facing the wrong way on the track, but driving forwards.  Busch upped the ante on that, though he tried to justify it with some dubious logic:

"When you put the car in reverse like that, it relaxes. It's like cooling down a horse after a good Kentucky Derby run."

Surprisingly, brothers winning back-to-back races isn’t as uncommon in NASCAR history as one might think, perhaps due to the prevalence of certain ‘racing families’ in the sport.  Including the Busch brothers, there have been 8 back-to-back brother winners.  The Busch brothers four back-to-back wins are one better than Tim and Fonty Flock, with three other brother duos right behind with 2 wins a piece—Tim and yet another Flock brother, Bobby, the legendary ‘Alabama Gang’ duo of Donnie and Bobby Allison and a couple of drivers of more recent vintage in Bobby and Terry Labonte.

NASCAR will take next week off before they run on a couple of short tracks on back to back weeks.  They’ll race at the Bristol Motor Speedway on March 22^nd and at Martinsville a week later.