Kurt Busch botched both qualifying passes Friday at the NHRA Gatornationals, leaving him little room for error heading into his final two runs Saturday. “An interesting day to say the least,” Busch said. “A lot of rookie things that I’m ready to put behind me. We’ve done this before. I’ve done testing, I know what to do, I know what to expect.” It sure didn’t look that way Friday. The 2004 NASCAR champion smoked his tires on the first run, prompting him to shut down his 1,400-horsepower engine, and covered the quarter-mile strip in 18.334 seconds. It was the slowest time among the 21 competitors. He made even more rookie mistakes during his second attempt. Busch failed to “stage” his dragster within the 7-second time limit and was essentially black flagged. Officially, he “timed out,” and his run did not count. “This has too much bitter in it because I’m the one making all the mistakes,” Busch said. “This is definitely one of those scenarios where things move so fast when you’re doing the burnout and staging.” With 12 cars already locked into the finals, Busch is among nine drivers vying for four spots Saturday, when he will get two more passes to turn things around.(Associated Press)(3-12-2011)
