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Whet
8/28/2008, 02:21 PM
NASCAR and Mike Stoops, kinda


Busch spends time with Arizona Wildcats' football team

By Rea White - Associate Editor

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Kurt Busch took some time from racing this week just to be a sports fan.

First he visited Arizona Wildcats football practice, addressing the team and gathered media Wednesday. Then he took some time to analyze his Chicago Cubs. Next, he'll take on Auto Club Speedway in this weekend's Pepsi 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup race.

The Penske Racing driver is a big fan of Pac-10 football and basketball. He briefly attended the University of Arizona before embarking on his racing career full time.
"I’ve only been back one time since my days in classes there," he said. "After we won the [NASCAR Cup] championship in ’04, we went back to get a special award that they presented during the U. of A.’s annual Sports Hall of Fame awards.

"I’d love to go back and see some Pac-10 games this year, but with the schedule we have, it looks almost impossible. We did get to go see two SEC games last season and plan on hitting a couple again this year. I really don’t know what I’m going to tell them right now, but we’ll give it our best shot at getting them all motivated, and we’ll have a lot of fun with the opportunity to get back down there.”
Busch said that he enjoyed the chance to speak with the team and coach Mike Stoops.
“It was a lot of fun and a great experience to get back down to my old school,” said Busch, who attended classes here in 1997 and 1998. “We were able to tour the new athletic complex before heading over to the practice field. My mission was to motivate the guys by making analogies of the importance of preparation and teamwork in both sports. I was really amazed at their interest level and the great questions they asked after giving my little talk to them.

“Coach Stoops is a great leader and he certainly made us feel at home."

Busch is also keeping a close eye on his Cubs. He said that he wouldn't talk about the importance of any upcoming matchup, believing they are all important.

“I don’t think that would be smart &hellip I’m certainly not going to jinx my Cubbies," he said of discussing individual opponents.

Now, he's turning his attention to racing in California. Busch has one win, three top-five and five top-10 finishes in 12 starts at the track. His average finish at the track is 11.4.

“I would certainly hope that we can have a strong run there this weekend,” he said. “We’ve been fortunate through the years to have some strong race cars for the California races."

He has also completed 3,253 of a possible 3,255 laps at the track.

“We just have to come in there with a positive mental attitude to start with, and knowing how consistent we’ve been is a definite boost,” said Busch, who is 19th in the standings. “Not worrying about the points or focusing on the Chase [For The NASCAR Sprint Cup] this time around, we know we can afford to try some things that we couldn’t do if we were in a conservative mode like many of the teams will be in.

“We’ll try to get the car handling as well as we can, and we may use the race to do some experimenting for the future. But as the race nears the end, we can afford to gamble if it comes down to it. We can look at the fuel-mileage angle, the tire strategy or whatever it calls for during the final 100 miles. We have nothing to lose and everything to gain.”