Patrick Reusse: Great driver is one fans love to hate

Kyle Busch made a stopover at Pocono Raceway for practice on Saturday and crashed. That put him in a backup car and thus in the back of the field for today's Sprint Car race.

That should make for an interesting 500 miles as Busch works his way aggressively from the 43rd position. There will be hurt feelings from opponents and boos from the customers along the way, but no one will be surprised if Busch has the No. 18 Toyota in position to win by late this afternoon.

"I don't like him," Nick Murgic said. "I don't like anyone who runs over you to win. I don't like the way he does it, but he can really drive a race car."

Murgic is 17 and completing his junior year at Rosemount High School. He's a third-generation driver on Minnesota's stock car scene, following grandfather Mike and father Steve.

This is Murgic's second season driving Super Late Models at Elko Speedway. He finished ninth as a 16-year-old and was the rookie of the year in 2007.

Steve runs the racing operation, and there are ambitions for Nick beyond being a strong presence in local racing.

The plan for this summer is to compete in all 15 races of the ASA Midwest series. Four of those races have been held, with Murgic running strong in a couple of them.

Extra-talented drivers are being fast-tracked. Busch had the advantage of being the kid brother of Kurt Busch, the 2004 Cup champion.

He was making appearances in the NASCAR truck series at 16. He won his first Cup race in September 2005 at California Speedway. At 20 years, 125 days, he was the youngest driver ever to win a Cup race.

Busch is now the dominant driver and personality in Sprint Cup racing, and he turned 23 last month. The guess was that would make him a hero to a young driver such as Murgic, but it's not the case.

"I like Junior [Dale Earnhardt Jr.], Jimmie Johnson, Matt Kenseth ... good guys, I guess," Murgic said. "Busch seems to enjoy making enemies.

"I was in Madison [Wis.] for an ASA race when he knocked Junior out of the way to win the race in Richmond [Va.] last month. There were a bunch of drivers and fans watching the race, and everyone was screaming at the television."

This weekend is Example A: Busch drove in the Craftsman Truck event for his friend Billy Ballew on Friday night at Texas Motor Speedway, starting 35th and finishing second.

On Saturday, he returned to Pocono for practice, and then headed to Nashville for the Nationwide Series race, where he finished 20th.

Murgic said early Saturday of Busch's three-event, three-track schedule: "He'll probably wreck a lot of stuff this weekend."

A couple of hours later came word that Busch had crashed in practice at Pocono, ripping up a brand-new Joe Gibbs Toyota.

Jason Schneider went into the weekend as Elko Speedway's Super Late Model points leader. He's 39 and has been racing on the local scene since 1994. He was the Late Model champion at Elko in 1998 and 1999.

"I see the same thing on the biggest stage with Busch. The more they boo him, the more you know that he's made it.

"When any driver has his mojo, that's when they are going to win. I know that from personal experience. Busch is talented, he believes in himself and in his equipment, and right now that makes him the driver with the mojo."