BUSCH IS BEST; He is at Bristol at least, where the roush driver has won three straight.

Byline: AL PEARCE

Wheeling a 3400-pound stock car around Bristol Motor Speedway has been described as like flying a jet in a gym. Here lately, nobody has been better at it than Kurt Busch. Busch's win in the Food City 500, driving for Jack Roush, was his third straight and fourth in the last five races at the half-mile bullring in eastern Tennessee. Busch led only the final 119 laps to win ahead of Rusty Wallace, Kevin Harvick, Sterling Marlin and Matt Kenseth.

Of course, it wasn't that easy. Nothing is ever easy at Bristol-a blue-collar, full-contact, WWE-type track that frays tempers and devours cars. Which is why the post-race line at the NASCAR trailer usually stretches from here to yonder. "You have to keep an open mind about this place,'' Busch said after his first win this year, the ninth of his Cup career. "You have to keep a positive outlook because you never know what's going to happen.''

Oh, really? Like 11 cautions for 85 laps? Sixteen damaged cars and a half-dozen crew chiefs, drivers and owners summoned to the trailer? A driver (Dale Earnhardt Jr.) who intentionally spun to cause a caution to keep from being lapped (more on that in a minute)? Post-race retaliation (Jamie McMurray on Kenseth) on pit road? Hard feelings and threats of payback throughout the garage? Two drivers (Tony Stewart and Scott Wimmer) in the penalty box for rough driving? Three "field fillers'' who ran 15 total laps and earned about $65,000 each?

Busch, struggling with a somewhat underpowered car, inherited the lead for good by ignoring crew chief Jimmy Fennig's pit call under caution at lap 381. When leader Jimmie Johnson pitted, Busch thought the cars in his mirror were lead-lap cars maintaining track position. In fact, they were lapped cars waiting to pit the next time around. "I thought I'd screwed up,'' he said. "Because of that, I didn't expect to win. It was up to me to either fade gracefully or put everything on the line and win. Today we were as lucky as we were good, because we didn't have the fastest car.''

Fennig thought his driver had cost the Roush Racing No. 97 Ford team a win. "I was upset because he needed to pit,'' Fennig said, "but Kurt knew what he had. He knows how to take ...