Although Formula One star Juan Pablo Montoya jumped to NASCAR and drove a Dodge for this season, he failed to qualify for the Chase for the Nextel Cup. But Kurt Busch driving the No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge was able to squeeze into the top twelve. And now that he is eligible to become the next champion, he must use everything in his arsenal to have a crack at the championship.
During the qualifying for the race in Dover, Kurt Busch had this to say: "All in all I thought it was a good effort from the Miller Lite team to put our Dodge third. It helps us picking pits. We should have a good pit box selection from that. And then, just working the first stages of the race, track position will hopefully help us lead a lap early on, grab those five points. We’ll see how the race shakes out. We could have a really good Dodge Avenger or one that just does the things we need it to do except there might be a couple guys quicker than us; all in all a good start to the weekend."
As for his thoughts on having a bad day, not knowing that his car will cause a wipeout at the race in Dover, Kurt said: "Sometimes you think you’re overdue and then other times you hope you just keep riding the good way. For us, it’s just been a night and day difference, it hasn’t just been a couple races that we ran better or just had better pit stops. It’s been a nice ten week stretch and I hope we can glue together another ten week stretch running though this chase."
Although the Dodge driver who has shown his potential last year failed to finish decently at Dover, the Chase is not yet over and he still has a chance to beat the other drivers. Jimmie Johnson proved that last year when the defending champion finished miserably in the first event of the Chase. With the help of his team and his car’s components which are as reliable as Dodge Neon shifters, Kurt Busch can still rally on the next eight races for a shot at the grand prize.
The driver said that their cars are now performing better and he is confident that they have a chance. Even if Kurt has not own a race this season, I think that he can still give a challenge to guys who are out front including championship leader Jeff Gordon.