Busch's start a moving story

Two weeks ago, Kyle Busch returned to his hometown to drive in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Before doing so, Busch made an appearance at a local elementary school and took a few questions from the kids.

Question: "Do you think Rick Hendrick has any seller's remorse right now?"

Out of the mouths of babes. Busch laughed and replied, "You'll have to check back with me at the end of the season."

Put another way, Joe Gibbs certainly hasn't expressed any buyer's remorse.

Since his departure from Hendrick Motorsports, which cleared the way for Dale Earnhardt Jr. to join Hendrick's four-car stable, Busch has not given the folks at Joe Gibbs Racing reason to regret their decision to sign the 22-year-old wunderkind and team him with Tony Stewart and Denny Hamlin.

"We all talked it over, we always do things together," Gibbs said of the decision to bring aboard Busch. "We [went] to Tony, and Tony said, 'I'd go get Kyle.' We went to Denny, [and] Denny said, 'I'd go get Kyle.' As we talked it over, we decided we better go get Kyle. We appreciate that. We appreciate him."

This season, Busch has put his talent on display, winning last Sunday's Kobalt Tools 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway to deliver Toyota its first Sprint Cup victory. It also gave Gibbs Racing a 1-2 finish as Stewart was runner-up.

"He's amazing to me," Stewart said of Busch. "You know, I'm proud to have him as a teammate. I think he's been a huge asset to Joe Gibbs Racing. It's fun to watch him [race]."

Busch's new teammates aren't the only drivers who have paid their respects.

"He's a good talent," said Earnhardt, who finished third at Atlanta. "I never really worked with him as closely as Tony and my [Hendrick Motorsports] teammates have, but they all say he's an amazing talent. And he's just got great, you know, seat-of-the-pants feel for a car, and he can drive 'em pretty much sideways."

More impressive than Busch's ability to drive on the ragged edge? If not for a blown right tire that caused him to finish 24th after leading 153 laps in last Saturday's Nationwide Series race, Busch, the points leader in the Sprint Cup and Craftsman Truck standings, would lead all three series.

No one has ever done that. Now, all of sudden, people are looking differently at Kyle Busch. He is being viewed as a serious threat for the Sprint Cup championship.

"I've earned a lot of respect from the people in the garage area and different owners," Busch said. "Being able to go [through] the transition phase last year, talking to Richard Childress and talking to Ray Evernham and Chip Ganassi and all of the other team owners out there [who] gave me their time; it was pretty special. Everybody got a taste of exactly who I am.

"And I think all that did was help my stature throughout the garage area. And obviously people have always recognized the fact that I've got some talent, but you know, now they are saying it means a lot."

Busch said on NASCAR's teleconference this week it gave him no special sense of satisfaction to put his car in Victory Lane before his former Hendrick Motorsports teammates this season.

While Busch ranks first in Sprint Cup points with 655, his former teammates all find themselves outside the top 12: Two-time defending champion Jimmie Johnson is 13th with 467 points, 3 astern of 12th-place Matt Kenseth; four-time champion Jeff Gordon is 15th (26 points out of the top 12 with 444); and Casey Mears, who inherited Busch's ride in the No. 5 Chevrolet, is 30th (139 points out, with 331).

"We know they are going to be strong and they are going to be stout," Busch said of his former team. "I'm just fortunate we have been good everywhere we've been. And [crew chief] Steve Addington and I have been clicking and really been able to work good together and we've had fast racecars.

"So the Hendrick stuff, they will come back and they will be strong; we're sure of that. But we feel like we have just kind of done our homework over the offseason and gotten our cars to the Hendrick standard, or I guess a little bit better than what they were last year."

Last laps

Tomorrow's Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway will mark the 668th and final Sprint Cup start for Dale Jarrett, driver of the No. 44 UPS Toyota Camry fielded by Michael Waltrip Motorsports. During his 25-year career, Jarrett has recorded 32 wins, including three Daytona 500s (1993, '96, and 2000) and the 1999 Cup Series championship.

Jarrett, who intends to make his final NASCAR start in May's All-Star exhibition race at Lowe's Motor Speedway, will hand over the reins to teammate David Reutimann and embark on a career in broadcasting with ESPN, following in the footsteps of his father, Ned Jarrett.

"This sport has been very, very good to me," Dale Jarrett said. "I've been fortunate to have the opportunity to meet some special people and work with some of the best in the business."

Jarrett said watching Brett Favre's emotional retirement speech resonated for him.

"I'm very happy with the decision [to retire], but it's starting to hit home a little bit more - even more after watching Brett Favre," he said. "That made me think a lot more. When you see someone like that and they have the appreciation for what they do, I hope that everyone understands that's how much I appreciate the opportunities I've been given in this sport."

Rain washed out qualifying at Bristol. The field was set by last season's points, giving Johnson and Gordon spots in the front row.

Many questions

Will Lewis Hamilton experience a sophomore slump after his phenomenal rookie season last year with McLaren? Will Kimi Raikkonen, widely regarded as the favorite, repeat as champion at Ferrari? Will two-time champion Fernando Alonso, who was implicated in September in a spying scandal that led to a record $100 million fine levied by the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) against McLaren, be able to resurrect not only his career but Renault in his second tour of duty with the team? How will drivers be impacted by the new technical rules, with the elimination of traction control and engine braking? Those questions and more are likely to be answered when Formula One gets underway tomorrow with the Australian Grand Prix at Melbourne's Albert Park . . . With the reunification of the Champ Car World Series and the IndyCar Series into one open-wheel circuit, Sebastien Bourdais, who will make his F1 debut tomorrow with the Scuderia Toro Rosso team, becomes the last driver to win a Champ Car title, having won the last four. "Yeah, there's a little bit of adaptation, but overall it's been going very well," Bourdais said of his switch to F1. "I've been very lucky that we had a lot of testing over the winter, something like 7,000 kilometers, so now it feels like home, but there's still a lot to learn because there's a lot of new tracks, a new organization, a new qualifying format for me. It's going to take a little bit of time, but I think we have a great spirit in the team, a great sponsor with Red Bull, and hopefully we can just put it all together and keep on [moving] forward." . . . Rahal Letterman Racing and driver Scott Sharp and his sponsor, The Patron Spirits Company, announced yesterday they had reached an amicable settlement in their breach of contract claims against each other. Terms were not released. Sharp, who was under contract to drive for RLR in the IndyCar Series, took his sponsor with him to the American Le Mans Series, which gets underway today with the 12 Hours of Sebring. Sharp, a native of Norwalk, Conn., will drive a Patron-sponsored car for Highcroft Racing. "We are pleased to put this mutually unpleasant matter behind us," said Bobby Rahal, who will field an IndyCar Series entry this season for driver Ryan Hunter-Reay. "We now can look forward to the start of what promises to be a successful 2008 season." . . . It seemed NASCAR was conspicuously silent when news broke of the open-wheel reunification, until that is, spokesman Ramsey Poston last week said: "A strong and healthy motorsports industry is good for everyone in racing. We wish the new league well as they reunify under one banner."

Michael Vega can be reached vega@globe.com; material from sanctioning bodies, race teams, sponsors, manufacturers, and track publicity departments was used in this report.