Busch Stays Ahead of the Moment

Debut of 'Car of Tomorrow' Draws Little Splash But Heavy Criticism From Winner

"I can't stand to drive them. They suck!" Kyle Busch says of NASCAR's Car of Tomorrow after winning the Food City 500 on Sunday. (John Russell - AP)

BRISTOL, Tenn., March 25 -- Rear wings didn't shear off and fly into the grandstands, nor did front splitters break apart on impact. None of the dire forecasts regarding NASCAR's radically redesigned racecar, the Car of Tomorrow, played out in its debut at Bristol Motor Speedway Sunday.

Conversely, none of its touted benefits -- chiefly, more side-by-side racing and a more entertaining show -- was evident, either.

Kyle Busch held off a spirited last-lap charge by Jeff Burton to win Sunday's Food City 500 by 0.064 of a second. Amid fireworks and flashbulbs, Busch climbed out of his winning car and thanked his closest challengers, Burton and teammate Jeff Gordon, who finished third, for racing him with respect through the frantic final turns of the race, whose distance was extended from 500 to 504 laps so it could finish under green-flag conditions.

Then, with Fox TV cameras rolling and a capacity crowd of 160,000 listening over loudspeakers, Busch blasted the NASCAR-designed car that earned him his fourth career win.

"I'm still not a very big fan of these things," Busch said of the so-called Car of Tomorrow, which will be run in 15 of the season's 31 remaining races. "I can't stand to drive them. They suck!"

In interviews that followed, Busch, 21, went on to explain that he felt NASCAR's redesigned car handled miserably. He struggled to get it to turn, he said. And it simply wasn't as maneuverable as the traditional Nextel Cup car, he claimed, which made it difficult to pass other cars. Busch confided that he disliked the car so much that he had told his crew chief earlier he hoped he would win Sunday's race so he could tell all the NASCAR fans watching on TV just how terrible it was.

Robin Pemberton, NASCAR vice president of competition, said he was pleased with the car's performance, citing the durability of its most notable elements, the rear wing and splitter, during collisions. In a hard crash just 45 laps into the race, the rear deck lid and wing were knocked completely off Dale Jarrett's Toyota but stayed attached to the car by tethers designed to do just that.

The Car of Tomorrow, which is four inches wider and two inches taller than the customary Nextel Cup car, was designed to keep drivers safer during collisions, contain race teams' escalating costs and make the races more competitive and entertaining for fans.

Pemberton didn't take issue with Busch's criticism of the way the car handled, calling him "a great young driver" who seemed determined to help his team and NASCAR officials work to make the car better.

"It's fair that somebody has an opinion like that, and I'm okay with it," Pemberton said. "We're here to run races, and we're here to do the best we can to have good competition for our fans. Everybody has an opinion."

While Busch walked off with the spoils, his Chevy was hardly the dominant car.

Tony Stewart's Chevy held that distinction. Stewart was without peer through the first half of the race. Unlike Busch, he could pass cars with ease. And once out front, Stewart was untouchable, building leads of 10- and 20-car lengths. But after leading 257 of the first 290 laps, his fuel pressure suddenly dropped, and he had to wheel into the pits for repairs that put him 23 laps down.

Meantime, Stewart's teammate Denny Hamlin took charge, storming to the front to lead 177 laps before getting hung up in the traffic of lapped cars. He later developed a fuel pump problem of his own and finished 14th. But the strong showing of Stewart and Hamlin proved that at least one NASCAR team, Joe Gibbs Racing, has figured out how to turn the controversial Car of Tomorrow into a front-runner. Gibbs-owned cars led 88 percent of the event's laps.

Side-by-side racing has been the essence of NASCAR's appeal for decades. And it traditionally has been on spectacular display at Bristol Motor Speedway, a high-banked, half-mile track known for harmless but hugely entertaining fender-banging and paint swapping. But Sunday's race resembled a high-speed parade more than a race, with little side-by-side dueling among the front-runners. When the checkered flag fell, the final statistics weren't that different from previous races. There were 14 lead changes, 15 cars still running on the lead lap and less than a one-second margin of victory, as Busch held off Burton by a nose.

Burton had several opportunities to wreck Busch for the victory but chose not to, testing him as hard as he could without spinning him out.

"I have a lot of respect for Kyle," Burton said. "He's a really hard racer and has always driven me clean. So that's what I did with him."

After the race NASCAR officials impounded two racecars -- the Ford driven by fifth-place finisher Greg Biffle and Busch's winning Chevrolet -- so they could take them back to their Research and Development Center for tests. Biffle's car was taken because it failed post-race inspection, failing to meet the minimum height. Busch's car was taken because it was the winning car.