No. 1 Kyle Busch

Kyle Busch is hanging tough. He leads the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series standings for the fourth straight week, not counting the two days Carl Edwards was in the lead, then losing it for not passing inspection after winning the Cup race in Las Vegas.
Busch heads in to the Cup race at Martinsville Speedway with three straight top five finishes at the track. He was fifth in the fall race in 2006 and fourth in both races last year.
While finishing well at Martinsville hasn't been a problem, starting up front has.
“Qualifying is a good thing to try to learn and I haven’t done that yet," said Busch, driver of the No. 18 Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing. "We’ll see if I can figure that out. I haven’t qualified well here yet, but the biggest thing is just during the race you have to be patient. There are 500 laps here, there’s so much that can go on and the first year I was just so impatient about trying to get to the front."
Jeff Gordon in the No. 24 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports won the pole for the Martinsville race. Busch will start eighth.
But Busch said patience will be the key to posting another good finish at Martinsville.
"On a restart I would just run over the guy in front of me and knock the radiator out and then the next time I think we had something else going on during the event," Busch said. "I can’t really remember -- I don’t think I spun out or anything like that. Learning the patience of this place and learning how to run around in a line or if you can make some passes -- try to make them clean and not run over anybody. It’s just about trying to keep your equipment clean and make your way to the front nice.”