Kurt Busch (photo cred: duane.schoon)

Jimmie Johnson is single handedly ruining NASCAR.  You know how I know?  Because I’m writing something positive about Kurt Busch.  A driver that I have hated from the first time I heard him speak.  I actually boycotted Miller Lite when he replaced Rusty Wallace.  That was tough, Miller Lite and I had been through a lot together.  Miller was guilty by association though, and we just couldn’t play together anymore. 

How do these things relate? I want so bad for someone to stop Jimmie Johnson from winning one more race, much less one more consecutive championship, that I have instituted an “anyone but Jimmie” mantra for this year.  Kurt Busch happens to not be Jimmie Johnson.  Therefore, I am now pulling for Kurt, his even more despised brother Kyle, and the 40 other drivers each Sunday that are not Jimmie. 

NASCAR can spin their ratings plateau on the economy.  I’m not buying it.  We all still have TVs and I’m guessing we’re watching them even more now that our discretionary income has dwindled and all we can afford to do is sit on the couch.  Now that may not help put behinds in the stands on race day, but that is only one part of the juggernaut that was NASCAR.  There are three things working against NASCAR on TV.  First is their vanilla, milk-toast four consecutive time champion, Jimmie Johnson.  Followed by the FOX networks hokie coverage.  Lastly is the rise of mixed martial arts(MMA). 

Someday I’ll write my ramblings on Larry Mac, DW, and MMA.  But today is reserved for Kurt Busch.  I still don’t like him.  I still wish I was courtside to see Jimmy Spencer try to punch him through the driver’s window at Michigan.  I was at the race, just not close enough to see the fear in Kurt’s eyes.  My anti-Jimmie tinted spectacles have opened my eyes to the decent qualities of other drivers though. 

Today I caught an interview with Kurt Busch on the Jim Rome Show.  Kurt didn’t mix in some contrived, premeditated analogy as he usually does.  The guy is generally just a total dork in interviews, for lack of a better word.  He just gave a pretty straightforward interview, dropped in his sponsor a couple times, and spoke honestly of Carl Edwards joke of a punishment.  What actually intrigued me about the whole thing, was that during this off weekend for NASCAR Sprint Cup racing, Busch is going NHRA sanctioned drag racing with a buddy in a 1970 Challenger they built.  Maybe there is hope for the guy yet.  He has a dream job, and he is spending his free time just like so many of us say we would, if we were in the same position.  He didn’t make me like him, but he made me want to be him.  And that is something I never would have thought I would ever say about Kurt Busch.  To celebrate I’ll have to go pick up a sixer of Lite.  Now just don’t go back to full goober mode Kurt, and beat Jimmie.