The Buschwhacker Romp

The Winston Cup regulars made a shambles of this week's Busch Series race at Michigan International Speedway. Michael Waltrip won the Cabela's 250 and was followed across the finish line by three other Cup drivers; Jeff Burton, Jeff Green, and Todd Bodine. The win was Waltrip's ninth career Busch Series victory, and the first one in over three years.

FOX TV race announcer and former Winston Cup Champion Darrell Waltrip (Michael's brother) has coined the term "Buschwhackers" in referring to Winston Cup drivers who drop down one level to race in the Busch Grand National Series. There has been controversy regarding this subject for many years, especially when Mark Martin was racing in the series. Martin retired from Busch Series racing two years ago and has the all time win record for the Busch Series at 45 victories, which was set while he was also racing in Winston Cup. The driver with the top number of 15 wins who is still racing in the series is Winston Cup driver Jeff Burton.

There is a lot of resentment when these Winston Cup regulars take the wins and top money away from the Busch Series regulars. In general, the race purses in the Busch Series are only a fraction of what the drivers win in the Winston Cup series. Michael Waltrip's purse for winning at Michigan was a paltry $34.6k compared to the nearly $100k purse that the winner gets at Michigan in Winston Cup. With the Cup drivers taking the first four positions, the $34k graduated down 4 times means that the first Busch Series regular to cross the line, Bobby Hamilton Jr. in fifth place, made much less money. There were six Winston Cup regulars finishing the race in the top ten positions.

Not all races pay the same. The super-speedway races like Michigan and Texas pay the most, with the short track races paying a minimal amount. James Finch, owner of the team that Jimmy Spencer drives for in the Busch Series told a sad story concerning these low Busch Series purses. He was lamenting as to how Spencer won the Richmond race in his No. 1 Yellow Freight sponsored Chevrolet and received a purse of $18k. Finch's tire bill for that race was $12k, not to mention the costs involved in racecars, parts, transportation, and three days of expenses and labor for the 16 man race team. The bottom line here is that Finch was stating that he won the race and lost money doing it.

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