It’s only a rivalry if the tires pop

Kyle Busch will have eye on Kevin Harvick at Lowe’s Motor Speedway

By PATRICK OBLEY - pobley@thestate.com

DARLINGTON — Forget the burgeoning Kyle Busch-Dale Earnhardt Jr. rivalry — keep your eye on Busch and Kevin Harvick.

Busch has identified Harvick as his primary competition in next week’s burnout competition during all-star festivities at Lowe’s Motor Speedway.

However, Busch is not certain how he was entered in it.

“I think somehow, someway I’m in it,” he said. “I wasn’t necessarily asked personally, but I think my representatives were.”

Though many believe Busch to be the superior burnout aficionado, he demurred to Harvick.

“People say that about Harvick, too. He’s pretty good at it,” Busch said. “We’ll see. I don’t know what it’s going to be like. Hopefully, I’m not the first to go, so I can learn something about what it will be like.”

Harvick is something of a burnout historian. He claims Ron Hornaday likely invented it “back in about ‘98.”

“The first one I remember was probably in Memphis and then (Dale) Earnhardt (Sr.) banned him from doing it because it was tearing everything up,” Harvick said.

Is there a secret to burnouts?

“I think the best style points are probably just blow the tires out,” Harvick said. “That’s what I’m going for. Just pop the tires.”

More All-Star talk. Clint Bowyer is all for extending All-Star weekend to the sport’s junior circuit. He figures a Nationwide event would play out much the same as the Sprint Cup competition.

“It would be fun,” Bowyer said. “It would be neat. It would still be the same thing. There would be a lot of crashing and going for it.”

But it’s got to be worthwhile.

“How much you paying?” he said with a laugh. “A million bucks would be a good payday again. I think that’s a pretty good assessment for all the stuff they tear up in the All-Star race.”

Bauer near the bumper. No, you didn’t need to adjust your set if you noticed something familiar on the Sterling Marlin’s No. 40 car during Saturday night’s Darlington race.

The car was adorned with Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer’s signature blue ‘Andre’ stickers as a favor to the highest-ranking NASCAR nut (with all due reverence) in our state’s government.

Bauer regularly attends NASCAR races and he’s close with Jeff Gordon, whom he drove against in a charity race at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Charlotte. The idea for the sticker on Marlin’s car came up during a lunch with NASCAR team owner Felix Sabates last week.

Staff Writer Steve Wiseman contributed to this report.