Dodge teams struggling to keep up

It was called the Dodge Challenger 500, but maybe Saturday night's race at Darlington Raceway should have been called the "Dodge Challenged 500."

Dodge teams were hard-pressed to get anything going — about the only thing that Dodge had out front all night was the pace car.

Dodge teams looked great at Daytona — Ryan Newman and teammate Kurt Busch finished one-two — but since then it has been a litany of excuses, and no more wins. Not even a good scent of one.

Dodge is last in the Sprint Cup manufacturers' race, last in Nationwide racing, and last in NASCAR's Trucks series.

The top Dodge finisher at Darlington was Kurt Busch. His brother, Kyle, is the hottest thing in NASCAR and won again. Kurt? Well, since leaving Ford's Jack Roush two years ago to join Roger Penske, the elder Busch has just about fallen off the radar. This season, Kurt Busch isn't even a top-20 driver — his Daytona run is his only top-10 finish.

Kurt Busch, once used to the boos that now greet his kid brother, would probably love to get any reaction from the crowd this season.

Still, he tried to put an upbeat spin on things: "The Charlotte test paid dividends. With this right-side tire being the same at Charlotte and Darlington, we just kept the same frame of mind for four days straight, which really helped us."

Kasey Kahne, another Dodge driver, might have had something to work with, but he crashed during practice. More at Winston Salem Journal