Busch shakes off the boos
DAYTONA BEACH — The Sprint Cup Series is halfway over and already Kyle Busch has six wins. Like him or not, the brash driver is dominating NASCAR.
Busch's victory in the Coke Zero 400 Saturday gave him twice as many Cup wins this season as the closest competitor in the points standings. Many NASCAR fans have yet to latch onto the 23-year-old Busch. They booed him after the race Saturday.
Instead of ignoring the boos, Busch appeared to appreciate the attention.
He acknowledged both his fans and detractors with a few theatrical moments of playful banter.
Busch's sarcastic jousting with Daytona's grandstand begs the question: Is Busch enjoying his role as NASCAR's new villain?
"There's a lot of fans making a lot of noise, so as long as they are making noise you know you're doing something right," Busch said. "You'd rather be known as a good guy and be liked by everybody, which is hard for me to do.
"So, I just roll along with it and do what I can. I mean, I have fun with it, I guess. But to me, I'm just kind of like, what? Why?"
Busch, of course, understands well why he's the bad guy at pretty much every track he visits.
He's upstaging the sport's cover boy, Dale Earnhardt Jr., who this year supplanted Busch at Hendrick Motorsports. Now Busch is in a Toyota and is lapping the field.
"There were a lot of Dale Jr. fans out there Saturday night that I'm sure didn't like to see me win," Busch said.
Especially under caution.
Carl Edwards finished second Saturday when the Coke Zero 400 ended under a yellow flag.
It's Edwards who is second in points with eight races left until the Chase for the Cup.
"Kyle's got the trophies and I've got all the respect in the world for him, but once the Chase starts everybody kind of gets to almost start over again," Edwards said. "Busch is getting a little bit of a head start with all of these wins on the bonus points, but I feel very good about our team."
Edwards' second-place finish Saturday came thanks to an unlucky spinout from Jeff Gordon during the restart on Lap 157.
Gordon, who later took the blame for his blunder, was in second place when he bumped Edwards' fender and lost control. The green flag remained despite the accident and Gordon slipped all the way to 31st.
"He was coming down and he was doing the best he could I think to try to get in front of me and he was up against my fender," Edwards said. "I thought that Gordon would turn right at any moment, but that's all that happened there. I don't think he knew I was inside of him."
