NASCAR Sprint Cup headliner Kurt Busch has captured a series championship in America's most popular motorsports arena and earned close to $40 million in his still-young stock-car racing career.
 
But going through the National Hot Rod Association's tech inspection Tuesday and "getting that little decal that said participant of the Gatornationals -- that was a big moment for me," he said.
 
"I felt like an eight-year-old schoolboy," Busch said. "It's been an honor and a privilege to be part of the Gatornationals."

NASCAR Sprint Cup headliner Kurt Busch has captured a series championship in America's most popular motorsports arena and earned close to $40 million in his still-young stock-car racing career.
 
But going through the National Hot Rod Association's tech inspection Tuesday and "getting that little decal that said participant of the Gatornationals -- that was a big moment for me," he said.
 
"I felt like an eight-year-old schoolboy," Busch said. "It's been an honor and a privilege to be part of the Gatornationals."
 
Because early-weekend rain delays at Gainesville Raceway forced Busch's drag-racing debut at the Tire Kingdom Gatornationals until Sunday morning,
the newest and most recognizable Super Gas competitor said he has had a marvelous time anyway. He spent much of his idle NASCAR weekend experiencing "the laid-back atmosphere of NHRA racing" while appreciating what he called "the seriousness of the fierce competitors."

Busch lost in the first round of competition.
 
Busch, driver of the No. 2 Roger Racing Miller Lite Dodge, is is excited about more outings in the 1970 Dodge Challenger that he built along with pal Jesse Walker, Project Manager at Mooresville, N.C..-based Kurt Busch Inc., and best man at his wedding, and former NHRA Super Comp crew member.
 
Wife Eva sparked Busch's interest in drag racing, giving him a certificate to Roy Hill's Drag Racing School.
 
"Little did I know how serious we were going to jump into it," Busch said. "When I followed him and learned more about the drag racing world, I learned that there was quite a bit I didn't understand. Roy took me under his wing, and we had some fun together. And when you do something wrong, he's the first one to tell you straight to your face. It reminds me a little bit of how my dad taught me how to drive in the oval ranks."
 
With what he called "great support from Dodge and Mopar" and some sponsorship help from Swiss watchmaker and technology innovator Tag Heuer, Busch and Walker have enthusiastically lavished their limited free time on this effort. That includes sometimes getting carried away with all the modifications to this beauty that serves as a display vehicle, street car, and Super Gas race car.
 
"We said, 'Hey -- we probably should put fuel injection on this car. That way I can just fire it up and drive it anytime, instead of having a carburetor on it."  Then he recalled the next sentence: "Well, if we're doing that, we might as well put a turbo on it," followed by, "Well, if we put a turbo on it, we may as well put Powerglide transmission in it.' We just kept bouncing ideas off each other. And the next thing you know, it's like, 'Wow. We're going to have an eight-second car.' It's just been one thing after the next," Busch said.
 
Busch indicated he's enjoying his hands-on racing project.
 
"I've been jumping in there," he said, "whether it's the wastegate we're trying to adjust, the tire pressure, the four-link rear suspension. It's just a regular street car that we're having some trouble with. It's been a unique challenge."
 
Busch did have a taste of drag racing, once, as a guest at the U.S. Nationals of team owner and sport legend Don Prudhomme. He also took to the track for an exhibition event at Charlotte's ZMAX Dragway right before its hosted the inaugural Carolinas Nationals.

He said he remembered thinking, "There's going to be nobody out there who can beat me on the NASCAR side. That was really the main objective," he said with a laugh.
 
He has arranged to drive in a "PINKS! All Out" show during NASCAR's Talladega weekend, and he said as his schedule permits, he's eager to run at some divisional events -- to "get our feet wet, get the mojo going. It's tough to commit full time."
 
For now, he said, "We're here. We're enjoying ourselves. Running with the Super Gas division, it's really neat, the camaraderie with the guys, hanging out in the pit area and just being one of the group.
 
"It's very casual, and it's very enjoyable to enjoy this time away from the NASCAR circuit and the high-pressure zone that we're always in. This is big pressure, too, with these guys in NHRA. But it's an open paddock. The fans can walk around and enjoy and see things from the inside out. In NASCAR, it's tough to get into the garage area."
 
Already Busch, who won the previous weekend's Cup race at Atlanta, has tried to integrate his drag-racing knowledge with his NASCAR procedures.
 
"This past weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway, we had all those restarts, and I was practicing like I was on the [drag racing starting] line, making sure I wasn't burning up my tires and getting good traction on those restarts," Busch said.
 
"The correlation I can draw is when you're in drag racing - I've only made a few passes so far - you're in it with the thousandths of a second. Hundredths mean a lot. Tenths of a second, you're too late in the NHRA world. In NASCAR, a tenth of a second means a lot of time,'" he said. "It's been a lot of fun to dissect my NASCAR stuff into thousandths of a second."
 
Busch has made only about a dozen passes down the dragstrip in testing and has run in the nine-second range. But he quickly has developed lofty goals. "I think we can get the car into the seven seconds, once we really start working on it," he said.
 
The purpose of his drag-racing venture, he said, is "trying to learn something different, challenge myself in another area of motorsports. I still hope that I've got 10 or 15 years left on the Cup circuit Who knows? The opportunity could be out there in the NHRA."
 
He had no delusions, though, that he would win races right away. He predicted that in his debut, "I'll probably get burned up on the tree."
 
No matter what, Kurt Busch described himself as "just a racer at heart."

Busch isn't the only NASCAR “star” hanging out in Gainesville. NASCAR luminaries Michael Waltrip -- who was hanging out with NAPA colleague Ron Capps -- and Scott Speed -- who was watching brother- and sister-in-law Matt and Angie Smith race in the Pro Stock Motorcycle class -- took in the straight line culture. And in the heart of The South's drag-racing cradle, which rocked "Big Daddy" Don Garlits, Kurt Busch got quite a lesson this weekend.