Home sweet home? Busches believe so
Brothers 1-for-31 at LVMS in main NASCAR series
It probably didn’t occur to Kurt Busch when he threw out the first pitch at Wrigley Field before the Chicago Cubs played Milwaukee on Tuesday that there is a baseball correlation describing his and brother Kyle’s futility at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Despite being two of stock car racing’s premier drivers and former NASCAR Cup Series champions, they are a combined 1-for-31 on their hometown oval.
That’s a batting average of .032. That’s way below the Mendoza Line of .200, so-named for the former baseball utility infielder Mario Mendoza, whose career batting average was .215.
So if the brothers had their druthers, they would prefer to be kicking off the NASCAR playoffs at some place other than Sunday’s South Point 400 at LVMS.
Or would they?
“I’m feeling way better this year,” Kurt Busch, 40, said at Thursday’s NASCAR playoffs media day at South Point. “The team (Stewart-haas Racing) is in a much better spot with consistency. Last year we were fast and slow at the same time. This year we’re very consistent. So it gives me that feeling that this is our best chance to win.”
Having guaranteed his playoffs presence with a recent victory at Bristol, Tennessee, Kurt Busch is seeded seventh heading into the four-tiered, 10-race playoffs that will decide the NASCAR champion. He was fourth before Brad Keselowski and a couple of other drivers caught fire in the past two weeks.
Riding the cushion
Younger brother Kyle won six races during the regular season, second only to Kevin Harvick’s seven, and is the co-top seed starting the playoffs with