Another unselfish act from Kurt Busch

Kurt Busch has won a race at the newly named Auto Club Speedway and won a Cup championship, but his team almost lost out on a garage stall for this weekend’s race at the track.
His team, Penske Racing, added a third car with three-time Indy Racing League champion Sam Hornish Jr. as driver. But to ensure that Hornish starts the first six races of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season, Roger Penske, owner of the team, transferred Busch’s points in the owners standings to Hornish’s team.
NASCAR rules state that the cars in the top 35 in last year’s owners standings receive automatic starting spots in the first six Cup races of the season.
Busch can use his past champion provisional as a last resort to qualify for the first six Cup races. He had to use one for the Daytona 500.
But because Busch’s team technically has no points from last year, it almost didn’t get a garage stall on a rainy day at the track on Friday.
“I thought my poor guys were out in the rain this morning without a garage stall,” said Busch, driver of the No. 2 Dodge for Penske Racing. “But luckily we ended up with one of the last garage stalls that they had available just because we don’t have any points.”
He said it was a little odd to be second in the Sprint Cup Series standings and not have a garage. But it was just the result of another unselfish act from Busch, who is being credited for giving his teammate Ryan Newman the little last-lap nudge he needed to win the Daytona 500.
“That’s the sacrifice,” Busch said. “I guess I’ve been a real team player by handing over points to Sam and pushing Ryan to victory, but it’s a great start. Penske Racing has got a lot of great things going on right now.”