but first, these notes of interest:

--Kurt Busch and his Troy Raker-led Penske Racing team will be racing their PSC-081 Miller Lite Dodge Charger in this weekend’s Citizens Bank 400 at Michigan International Speedway.  Kurt has raced this chassis only once over the course of his 40-race stint as the driver of the famed No. 2 machine.  He started third and finished eighth last November at Texas with the car, leading once for 37 laps.

--Kurt going “blogging” – Miller Lite Dodge driver Kurt Busch will begin a weekly blog on ESPN.com this weekend.  The 2004 NASCAR champ’s written “musings and opinings” will be featured on Fridays for the remainder of the racing season.  “My own blog; that’s cool,” Kurt said as he was beginning the new project earlier this week.  “We’re gonna’ have a lot of fun with it.  I’ll guarantee you that I’ll be talking about some subjects in my ESPN blog that’ll be seen only there.  Of course we’ll have to talk about the races, but I plan on going outside those lines on a regular basis.  I’m really looking forward to it and we really appreciate having the opportunity.”

--Don’t forget…Tune-in to see Kurt on ABC Prime Time, as he stars in "Fast Cars & Superstars – the Gillette Young Guns Celebrity Race," the 7-episode first-of-its-kind stock car racing reality series featuring the Gillette Young Guns and stars from the world of sports, music and entertainment.   "Fast Cars & Superstars - Gillette Young Guns Celebrity Race" includes six half-hour episodes with an hour-long finale. The first six episodes (June 7, 10, 12, 14, 17, 19) air at 8pm ET / 7pm CT, with the finale on Sunday, June 24 at 7pm ET. For more information on the series, log onto www.GYGTV.com

--Leave it to Dave Moody, MRN Radio motorsports announcer and host of "Sirius Speedway;" heard weekdays from 3-7 p.m. EDT on Sirius NASCAR Radio, Channel 128, to come up with a unique view of Kurt’s 100-point penalty resulting from the June 4 Dover race.  Moody, known to a huge following as “the Godfather of motorsports,” equated the penalty to a one-race suspension, citing the fact that Kurt had averaged earning 110 points per race after the Dover race.  Interesting perspective, Dave…

--Kurt will be back behind the bar, again raising money for charity, on Thursday night.  He will be celebrity bartending at the Artesian Wells Sports Tavern, located at 18711 US Highway 12 in Cement City, Mich.  Kurt will be “tending bar” from 6:30 p.m. till 8:00 p.m.

--“When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hold on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.” –Harriet Beecher Stowe

KURT BUSCH DETERMINED TO GET BACK INTO TOP-12 IN POINTS
-Miller Lite Dodge Driver & Team Taking A “Realistic Approach” At Challenge To Make 2007 Chase-

BROOKLYN, Mich.  (June 12, 2007) – Miller Lite Dodge driver Kurt Busch is quick to admit that getting back up into the top-12 in NASCAR NEXTEL Cup points and becoming “Chase-eligible” will not be an easy task.  Yet the 2004 NASCAR champ is equally fast to say his team is determined to do just that.

            “Entering this weekend’s race at Michigan, we have 12 races to get the job done,” said Busch, currently 16th in the standings and 132 points behind 12th-place Mark Martin.  “It’ll be a hard climb, but we’re determined to do it.  We’ll be out there digging for every possible point between now and then.

            “The thing about it is that it’s a pretty complex situation (with the points) and we’re taking a realistic approach,” said Busch.  “It’s not like we’re out there trying to catch one driver and team.  It’s a reality check because there are about 10 drivers in the mix who will be battling it out to get one of those final spots in the Chase. 

            “What has us optimistic that we can pull it off is the fact that we have so many of our strongest tracks that we’ll be racing on between now and the cutoff race at Richmond in September,” said Busch.  “Tracks like Michigan, Sonoma (Infineon Raceway), Daytona, Watkins Glen, Bristol – and others where we think we can make major gains – those tracks and races give us tremendous hope that we can be there where we need to be come September.”

            It would be hard to find anybody in the NASCAR garage who has a better grasp of the task at hand than Miller Lite Dodge crew chief Troy Raker.

            “Kurt is certainly correct when he called our situation complex,” said Raker, who has a Master of Engineering degree from Penn State University.  “You can’t just look at it as simply gaining spots up the points ladder.  The major thing you have to factor into the equation is our deficit to 12th and narrowing that down.

            “A great example of that can be found by looking back at Sunday’s Pocono race,” Raker continued.  “After the 100-point penalty (for Dover infraction) was assessed, we fell to a tie for 17th and we were 88 points behind Truex (Martin Truex Jr.), who moved up to 12th.  We finished 16th at Pocono on Sunday and that moved us up to 16th in the standings.

            “I’ve read several stories that stated Kurt advanced a spot in the standings and that’s true from a superficial standpoint,” said Raker.  “But we can’t look at it that way.  We have to look deeper.  The fact of the matter is that we really lost ground on our goal on Sunday.

            “Truex finished third and Mark Martin finished seventh.  Those were a couple of the guys that we needed to finish ahead of.  The bottom line is that we entered Sunday’s race 88 points out of 12th and now we’re 132 points out of 12th.  It can be a little confusing, but you always have to keep in mind the particular cars and drivers you are battling with for those spots up the points ladder.

            “It’s a precarious position that we’re in,” said Raker.  “We all want Kurt to maintain his focus on looking ahead, but I’m attempting to maintain a total big picture perspective.  That includes watching our back, too.  The fact is that we have only an 87-point buffer back to Elliott Sadler in 20th spot. 

            “We have to go to each of the next 12 races looking for top-fives, top-10s and leading laps for the bonus points,” said Raker.  “We’re going to several tracks where Kurt seems to always perform well on.  We have to view each race as a perfect opportunity to close the gap and that’s what we plan on doing.”

* * *

            This weekend’s NEXTEL Cup action at Michigan International Speedway gets under way with practice on Friday from 11:30 a.m. till 1:00 p.m.   Friday’s 3:10 p.m. single round of qualifying will allocate all starting spots for Sunday’s battle.  Saturday’s action features practice sessions from 10:00 a.m. till 10:50 a.m. and from 1:20 p.m. till 2:20 p.m.  Sunday’s Citizens Bank 400 (400 miles/200 laps) has a 2:00 p.m. starting time with live coverage provided by TNT-TV and MRN Radio beginning at 1:30 p.m. EDT

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