ROCKINGHAM, N.C. -- Two races into the season, Kurt Busch
has established himself as the early favorite for the Winston Cup
title.
Busch scored his second consecutive runner-up finish Sunday,
losing a stirring battle with Dale Jarrett over the final 10 laps
at North Carolina Speedway.
But he took over the top spot in the championship standings,
grabbing a 31-point lead over Jarrett as the series heads into his
hometown of Las Vegas next week.
"It feels good to get off to a great start," he said. "But
we're just two races in. I'd like to say that we're a championship
contender with the way we ended last year and we'll just try to
keep our momentum rolling forward."
Busch scored four wins last year -- three in the final five races
of the year -- and finished third in the final points standings.
With two second-place finishes, his competitors are now taking the
24-year-old racer very serious.
"That young man is the hottest driver out here," Jarrett said.
"And the scary thing is he's getting really smart out here,
knowing when to push it and when not to.
"I told someone earlier this week when talking about who would
be a surprise for a championship that Kurt Busch is really a guy
we're going to have to contend with."
The confidence level is soaring at the Roush Racing team, with
crew chief Jimmy Fenning brashly declaring after the race Sunday
that the No. 97 Ford is the team to beat this year.
"Yeah, Kurt Busch is ready to win a championship," he said.
"Because he's so good, that's why."
McMurray's making noise
When teammate Sterling Marlin exited
the race with motor problems, rookie Jamie McMurray was responsible
for carrying the Chip Ganassi Racing team.
He did by demonstrating the poise and patience of a veteran to
finish fifth on Sunday.
McMurray, who set a NASCAR record last season by winning in his
second Winston Cup start as Marlin's injury replacement, is proving
that the victory was no fluke.
Now with his own team, he's looking forward to proving his worth
while creating chemistry with veteran crew chief Donnie Wingo. He
worked with Marlin's crew in his six Cup races last season.
"Coming in, I didn't even know Donnie," McMurray said. "I was
a little bit nervous about that, and you guys would just tear me up
if I didn't do well. You'd say it was all car 212 (Marlin's car) or
whatever. So there's a little bit of relief there."
McMurray, who started seventh, had to pull off the throttle in
the final laps to conserve fuel and maintain his top-five finish
rather than try to pass Ricky Craven for fourth.
"We were about three laps short of making it, so I pretty much
rode around half-throttle the whole time the last 30 laps,"
McMurray said. "I didn't really have a lot to gain by trying to
pass (Craven) for fourth versus what we would have lost if we had
run out of fuel and had to make a pit stop."
Winless Wallace
Rusty Wallace wanted to mark his 600th career
start with his first victory in almost two seasons.
But after leading a race-high 182 laps early in the race, an
ill-handling car stretched his winless streak to 64. He wound up
sixth.
"That thing was a bullet, it was flying," he said. "It was
handling perfect and the motor ran great. About three-quarters
through the race. I could see the track turning black and I had the
thing turning good, and it just got too free."
Still, Wallace was encouraged by the early strength of the No. 2
Dodge. After seeing his streak snapped last year of at least one
victory in 16-straight seasons, Wallace is anxious to get back to
Victory Lane.
"It's encouraging we ran so strong," he said. "There were
times when I would look in the mirror and couldn't even see the
second-place car at the beginning of the race it was running that
good."
Bad luck for Junior
Dale Earnhardt Jr. just can't catch a
break.
The heavy favorite to win at Daytona last week until a bad
alternator sent him to a 36th-place finish, he was done in again on
Sunday by bad parts and bad breaks at North Carolina Speedway.
He started 12th and was riding along until he made contact with
Jeff Gordon, smashing in the left front fender on his Chevrolet.
It led to a flat tire that started the snowball rolling on his
miserable day.
"Jeff came up into the left-front fender and knocked the
left-front fender in on the tire," said Junior. "We blew the
left-front tire out. That just set us in all kinds of trouble, as
far as trying to fix that."
Earnhardt was later involved in four of the race's seven
cautions: He spun on the backstretch once, he got together with
Jeremy Mayfield later. He had more contact with Gordon to go
spinning into the outside wall.
In the end, he finished three laps down in 33rd position.
"We just didn't have a good car, kept spinning out," he said.
"I don't think we've had a good finish here since I started
racing. Expectations weren't high."