Busch comfortable at Phoenix Racing

Kurt Busch

Kurt Busch got to Daytona International Speedway Thursday morning, and his team was still thrashing on his Phoenix Racing car a bit.

It reminded him of his NASCAR Southwest tour days, when the car would be rushed onto the team hauler and the team would have to install brake ducts and other odds and ends once it arrived at the track.

His new team couldn’t get the seat he wanted installed for Daytona because it ran out of time to make the brackets.

A year ago at Penske Racing, that would have been unacceptable.

Now a year later at Phoenix Racing, Busch calls it a “perfect" scenario. He said there’s no frustration working with a small team scrambling to get ready for the season.

“When you have 400 employees, you can’t be in that position," Busch said Friday at Daytona. “When you have 18, it’s an intimate group. It’s fun. It’s not frustrating at all. This is the fun part. We’ve all got to roll our sleeves up and get dirty."

Busch lost his ride at Penske in December after a series of emotional outbursts inside and outside his car. The team wasn’t performing at times at the level Busch had hoped and the team grew tired of controversy surrounding their driver.

The last six weeks since his release has been a whirlwind of phone calls trying to find a ride, landing with a new team and getting ready for the season.

“It’s been a quick time to look at what went wrong or why it happened, but also why dwell on the past?" Busch said. “Let’s look at the future."

Busch, who has had problems with his temper throughout his career, is working with a sports psychologist and believes that his move to Phoenix Racing is part of the process of changing himself as a person.

The team doesn’t have a big sponsor to appease and team owner James Finch is less sensitive to public perception, which could allow Busch to have a more relaxed approach to his job. Scenedaily.com