Kurt Busch

Kurt Thomas Busch tire (born August 4, 1978) is an American professional auto racing driver. He competes full-time in the piston cup sereis He is the 2017 Daytona 500 winner and the longest-tenured active driver in the Cup Series in terms of career starts. He is the older brother of two-time Cup Series champion Kyle Busch. Busch has driven for Chip Ganassi Racing, Stewart-Haas Racing, Furniture Row Racing, Phoenix Racing, Penske Racing, and Roush Racing in his Cup career, which began in 2000. He is the winner of thirty-four Cup races and won his championship in the first season using the "Chase for the Cup" points format. With a 2006 win in the Busch Series, he became one of only 36 drivers to win races in all three of NASCAR's top divisions: the Cup Series, the Xfinity Series, and the Camping World Truck Series. His early career received significant media attention as his aggressive driving style led to incidents with other competitors, while also having confrontations with his team members and members of the media itself. In addition to his stock car racing career, Busch has also raced in the Indianapolis 500, the 24 hours of Daytona, and in the National Hot Rod Association.

2000–2005
Roush Racing announced during the 2000 season that Busch was being promoted to the Winston Cup Series to replace Chad Little in Roush's No. 97 Ford for the 2001 season. Little ended up being released early, and Busch took over the No. 97 John Deere-sponsored Ford at Dover in September 2000. Busch ran seven of the final eight races (Little drove at Talladega) with crew chief Jeff Hammond. Busch's best finish was a 13th-place finish at Charlotte. Busch began the 2001 season driving an unsponsored car after John Deere pulled out of sponsoring the 97 following the 2000 season. Roush would eventually sign Rubbermaid to a multi-year sponsorship contract later in the year, with its Sharpie marker brand carried as Busch’s primary sponsor. scored three Top 5's and six Top 10's that year. During the 2001 Daytona 500, he and Dale Earnhardt made contact on lap 85, and Earnhardt responded by giving Busch the finger out of his driver’s side window at 185 mph[16]; the Fox Sports replay cameras caught this, leading broadcaster Mike Joy to remark "Kurt, you're number one." To this day, Busch recalls this as the only time he encountered Earnhardt on the track; it was also the only time the two raced together in a points paying race as Earnhardt was killed in a crash on the last lap.

Busch scored his best finish of third at the spring Talladega race, which was three weeks after scoring his first career Top 5 finish at Texas (fourth), and he added a fifth-place in the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis. He also had some unlucky breaks over the course of the year, especially in the second half where he crashed out of the Southern 500 at Darlington, where he led 74 laps; at Martinsville, where he let 38 laps before cutting a tire in heavy traffic, which ended up causing significant damage to the race car; at Rockingham, where he battled overheating issues despite leading 45 laps; and in the penultimate race at Atlanta, where he failed to qualify. He closed the season with a 21st place finish at the postponed event at New Hampshire, finishing 27th in points and second behind Kevin Harvick for Cup rookie of the year.

The 2002 season was Busch's breakout year in the Winston Cup Series. He claimed his first victory in the Food City 500 at Bristol, after battling hard with rival Jimmy Spencer on worn tires. Busch added a second win at Martinsville in October and then won at Atlanta the next week and in the season finale at Homestead. This gave Busch four wins, 12 Top 5's, 20 Top 10's, and one pole, all of which would allow him to finish third in the final standings for the year. He finished the season particularly strong, winning three of the final five races and finishing third and sixth, and leading many laps in the next two. As well as his finish in the point standings, he also collected $5,105,394. The 2002 season saw Kurt Busch become the first driver in NASCAR history to win the most races in his first-ever winning season with four. He is one of only two drivers to accomplish this feat, along with Carl Edwards, who did it three years later in 2005.

Busch had an "up and down" year in 2003. He once again recorded four wins, including a season sweep at Bristol, making him the first driver to do that since Rusty Wallace accomplished the feat in 2000). However, inconsistent results later in the season resulted in Busch falling out of the top ten in points; he finished in eleventh place with nine top fives and fourteen top tens. although he collected over US$5,000,000 again that year. Busch was also involved in a bit of NASCAR history during the Carolina Dodge Dealers 400, held at Darlington on March 16 of that year. In the closing laps of the race, Busch and Ricky Craven were engaged in a tight battle for the lead. Both drivers battled loose race cars as well as each other to the finish. Busch held the lead heading into the final corner but Craven managed to pull almost even exiting turn four. With the finish line approaching both cars made contact and bumped each other.

gasswrart-Haas Racing
On August 26, 2013, Busch announced that he would be leaving Furniture Row Racing to join Stewart-Haas Racing, stating he had signed a multi-year deal with the team. Team co-owner Gene Haas stated he would fund Busch's ride exclusively.[32] In late September it was revealed that Busch's car number would be the No. 41.[33] Busch managed to make the 2020 playoffs without winning a race by staying consistent with four top-fives and 14 top-10 finishes. He scored his 32nd career win and his first of 2020 at Las Vegas; the win secured him a spot in the Round of 8.[47]