Despite bumpy ride, Busch picked to win

The Sprint Cup Series points leader will start from the pole today.

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Kyle Busch hit his first speed-bump of the season Saturday, when he wrecked one car and scraped the wall with another.

No worries.

Busch is the hottest driver in NASCAR heading into today’s race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and the locals have made him a 4-to-1 favorite to win on his hometown track. The Sprint Cup Series points leader will start from the pole in his new Toyota, which suffered just slight damage when he bounced it off the wall Saturday in the final practice session.

It’s not expected to slow Busch, who hasn’t finished lower than fourth this season in six races spanning three series. His torrid start has the industry ‘abuzz,’ with many respected veterans marveling at the 22-year-old’s talent.

“Right now, he is the wheel man of the series,” said Mark Martin, who qualified third. “When you watch Jeff Gordon drive, Jeff Gordon goes really fast. But you don’t see a whole lot there other than going fast.

“You watch Kyle Busch drive and not only is he going fast, he’s taking your breath, too.”

Busch certainly did that in the season-opening Daytona 500, dominating the early parts of the race before mounting a frantic final charge that was so dizzying, teammate Tony Stewart complained he had motion sickness from watching Busch slice through the field.

He came up short, finishing fourth, then added another fourth-place finish in Monday’s rain-postponed event in California. It was good enough to push him into the points lead for the first time in his career, but Busch wants a win. His only victory this season came in last week’s Truck Series race.

A win in Vegas — where Busch has a second, third and ninth-place finish in four previous starts — would make history: No driver has won from the pole since Cup racing began here in 1998.

“It’s pretty special to be on pole at home track,” he said. “It’ll be even better in Victory Lane at the end of 400 miles.”

Except for his two mishaps Saturday — in addition to scraping the wall in his Cup car, he wrecked his Nationwide Series ride on his second qualifying lap — everything Busch has done so far this season has been pretty special.

In addition to his spot atop the Cup standings, Busch is leading the Truck Series points and headed into Saturday’s Nationwide race trailing only Stewart in the standings. And when he knocked Carl Edwards off the pole, last week’s race winner could only shrug.

“I couldn’t run the lap he ran if I tried 100 times,” Edwards said. “He’s just a great driver. It’s pretty wild to see the success he’s had. He’s doing very well.”

In just his fourth full season of Cup racing, Busch is drawing comparisons to the late Tim Richmond because of his aggressive, wide-open style and impressive car control.

“I just felt all along that he was going to have a great opportunity in this sport, and he has fallen into a category like Tim Richmond,” said older brother, Kurt, the 2004 series champion.

“I like his tenacity, his aggressiveness, his belief of, ‘Hey man, I’m just here to win. I don’t care about anything else.’ ”

But he wasn’t supposed to be this good this soon into his first season at Joe Gibbs Racing.

He had established himself as a driver capable of winning every week at Hendrick Motorsports, where he had four wins and 51 top-10 finishes in 114 starts. But he could also be quite wild, and his fearless attitude led to many crumpled cars.