Kurt Busch's Sonoma run makes him more difficult to understand

Just as everyone tried to once again write off Kurt Busch’s career and say he will have trouble ever competing for wins in the Sprint Cup Series, Busch took the unsponsored #51 car Sunday at Sonoma and drove it to a hard-fought, third-place finish.

Remember, this #51 car is owned by James Finch, who has been in the sport for 19 years and had three career top-fives heading into Sunday’s race. Finch has had 25 other drivers have raced a Cup car for him and only three had even recorded a top-five.

By any measure, Busch did a great job Sunday. Not many could take that #51 car and run as well as he has at times this season. He certainly doesn’t have the finishes to show for it, but Busch has driven some pretty good races this season and been in the top 15 before trouble struck late in the race.

And that might be what is so frustrating about Busch. He has a lot of talent. If Busch putted around in the back of the field throughout his career, people wouldn’t care nearly as much about what he does on or off the track. If he did or said something stupid, he would lose his ride and that would be the end of his Cup career. We would likely never hear from him again.

But that’s not the case. Busch is a very good driver. He has won a championship and at least one race for the last 10 consecutive years.

Sometimes Busch is like that kid in school that always got under your skin. At times you would hate that kid to death, but then he or she would do something nice and make you have to reconsider your opinion.

Busch is in the same position. His emotional response to Sunday’s performance shows that he still very much cares about what he does; he wants to remain in the sport and eventually return to a top-notch ride. Who wouldn’t love that redemption story?

Well, that’s the issue. After Penske Racing and Busch parted ways, Busch spent the rest of the offseason talking about how he wanted to do things right and get his career back on track. That’s wonderful. He could put his head down and grind through this season as best he could and then hope one of the big owners gave him another shot.

But just when we think Busch has changed and is dedicated to doing the right thing, he goes and has a dispute with Ryan Newman’s pit crew at Darlington that puts him on probation. He then mouths off to a reporter following the Nationwide race at Dover four weeks later to earn a suspension for the next week at Pocono.

All of a sudden any sympathy for Busch flew out the window. Those acts make him appear as the jerk everyone thinks he is right after an incident happens.

This leaves people into a state of confusion. They don’t know if Kurt Busch is a flat-out jerk who can’t get along with anybody or a good guy who just gets too wrapped-up in his emotions.

Either way, Busch has pushed the envelope to its breaking point. One more negative situation could be the end of the line for him in a Cup car that has consistent sponsorship.

But, as we saw Sunday, top-five runs in an unsponsored car can also expose the world to how good Busch is as a racecar driver. That could be his ticket to get back on a career path that is headed toward Victory Lane.

Rating the Toyota/Save Mart 350: 2 Stars **

The first road course race of the 2012 Sprint Cup Series season followed the theme for most of the year so far that the majority of the race should be void of any action. The race at Sonoma had very long stretches of time where everyone just logged laps and talked about strategy. All in all, Sunday’s race gets a generous 2 Star Rating.

Clint Bowyer and Kurt Busch did have a good battle toward the end of the race. Busch looked like he might be able to pull off a pass at the end but instead broke a piece in the rear of his car. Instead, he had to work harder at holding off Tony Stewart than catching Bowyer.

However, having Busch in contention for the win certainly added some intrigue to the finish of the race, even if for nothing more than to find out what he said afterward. Still, it is cool to see an unsponsored car challenge for a win or even run near the front of the field, regardless of who is in the car.

The rest of the race left much to be desired. Sometimes long green-flag runs are fun if drivers are sliding around and racing each other, but long green-flag runs at a road course are brutal. There wasn’t one exciting moment for the first 85 laps of Sunday’s race.

Pit stops were about the only things that happened after Jeff Gordon passed Marcos Ambrose on lap 12. Martin Truex Jr. took the lead after green-flag stops cycled around because he came in before everybody else, and then Bowyer would take the lead when Truex Jr. pitted.

The rest of the race wasn’t even just full of cars going around in circles, it was full of cars winding their way through a road with a few hills. Unfortunatly, the latter is worse for NASCAR fans.

Anyway, congratulations to Bowyer, the #15 team and Mikdkchael Waltrip Racing. That organization has improved the most of any group in the sport during the past year. Most people didn’t expect any MWR cars to make the Chase, and now Truex Jr. and Bowyer both sit comfortably in the top 10 in the points standings.

Regardless of driver preferences, it is nice to see another organization step into serious Chase contention. Earnhardt-Ganassi Racing has a car challenge for a spot every other year or so, but otherwise the Hendrick, Gibbs, Roush-Fenway and Childress organizations dominated the scene. New contenders are always good for the sport.

Although there haven’t been any first-time winners this season, there have been 12 different winners in the 16 races this year. That is an even better rate than last year, when we talked about how many different drivers reached Victory Lane at this point in the season. Only 11 different drivers won the first 16 races in 2011.

So, although the racing hasn’t been particularly exciting in many races this season, at least there has been a bunch of different winners. This would not be a good year to have one driver dominate the entire season, unless it was Dale Earnhardt Jr., of course. We saw how much his wins drum up interest after he won at Michigan last week.

Now the Cup series heads to Kentucky for the second Cup race at Kentucky Speedway. Kyle Busch dominated the inaugural event last year that received more attention for the traffic problems than the actual race. If the race at Sonoma lacked action, it is hard to imagine the race at Kentucky will have much more, but we’ll always hope.

Either way, Daytona is only two weeks away.