Kyle Busch has right teachers: Other NASCAR notes
Kyle Busch admits it initially was tough being a teammate of Nextel Cup champions Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson.
But, Kyle Busch has learned a lot from Hendrick Motorsports teammates Jeff Gordon and Johnson.
"It was kind of hard for me to do so in the beginning of my career, and even so in the beginning of this year because I don't necessarily feel like I am as close to them as I want to be," he said during this week's Nextel Cup teleconference. "None of that's due to them, or none of that's due to myself. It's circumstantial, where I'm off doing my own thing and they're off doing their own thing."
Gordon encouraged Kyle Busch to ask for help.
"I never really understood whether I should go to them or whether they should come to me," Kyle Busch said of his conversation with Jeff Gordon. "You would think the veteran guys, the older guys, would want to come help the young guys and not necessarily the young guys go to them and always ask for the help. I feel like that would be a nuisance. I'd always wait for them to come talk to me.
"Jeff shed some light where it's actually the other way around."
FRUSTRATION FOR OTHER BUSCH
Kurt Busch, Kyle's brother, captured the 2004 points championship but hasn't won in the past 44 Cup races.
Kurt Busch's frustrations boiled over during Monday's race in Dover, Del., when he and Tony Stewart were involved in an accident on Lap 216 and both blamed the other.
"There's only a few bad apples out there and he's one of them," Tony Stewart said.
Busch drove next to Tony Stewart's parked car on pit road and almost hit Tony Stewart's jack man. Busch then sped away but admitted he was wrong.
"I wanted to make a point, but when you make a point like that, it always ends up making it worse," Kurt Busch said. "It was my fault for doing that. The issue was out on the racetrack. It was not on pit road."
NASCAR parked Busch for the rest of the race, and the sanctioning body has not yet announced further penalties.
PIT STOPS
-- Thursday's funeral service for former NASCAR president Bill France Jr. in Daytona Beach, Fla., will be open to the public. Gravesite services will be for family only.
-- David Reutimann will pull triple duty this weekend. Friday at Pocono, Pa., he'll try to qualify Josh White's car for the ARCA race and his own No. 00 Camry for the Nextel Cup race. Saturday, he'll compete in the Busch race in Nashville, Tenn. And Sunday, he'll be back at Pocono for the Cup race. "It's neat as far as all the helicopters and planes that are involved to make it on time," Reutimann said. "It makes you feel like you're important for a day or so."
-- Last weekend at Dover, for the first time since the season-opening Daytona 500, Michael Waltrip qualified for a race. He finished 28th. "I was proud to be in there because I've been minus-23 points since Daytona," he said. "They fined me 100 points for the infraction that my car had (an illegal substance was found in the intake manifold) and I hadn't made a race since, so I didn't have any drivers' points and I was so afraid I was going to be the first person in history to race all year long and not have any points."
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