Kurt Busch gets a grown-up job

KURT BUSCH has grown up. Finally, at age 35.

During the Tuesday news conference announcing Busch will be the fourth driver for Stewart-Haas Racing next year, he referred to himself as "an undiscovered punk" when Jack Roush signed him to drive in the Camping World Truck Series.

"I didn't know where the brake pedal was, apparently, because I ran into everything," Busch said. "By the end of my first truck season [2000], I'm running Cup cars."

Four years later, Busch won the Sprint Cup title with a lot of punk still in him.

"It's easy as a 25-year-old to say you know everything, that you can do everything by yourself," he said. "That's what I thought that I could do when I moved from Roush Racing to Penske back in 2006, to bring Roger his first championship. I thought I could wear all the weight on my back. That was not the case. That's when you learn it's about the people, team communication, how it filters through all the channels.

"With the different transitions through life, coming from young 20s into the later 20s, now being 35, I find myself in a great position with stability in the sport, knowing what I've done wrong, knowing what I've done right.

"It's taught me a lot about myself on how to understand disappointment better, and it's also taught me a lot about how to help with crew members when they stumble or they trip on something, to be there for them. So that's why I feel like I'm in a better place mentally and spiritually, as well."

Starting next year, one question will be: How will Busch get along with his new teammates? With Busch's current No. 78 Furniture Row team, all the focus has been on him. With Stewart-Haas, Busch will share the spotlight with such strong personalities as Tony Stewart, Kevin Harvick and Danica Patrick.

Earlier in their racing careers, Busch and Harvick were fierce rivals.

"Ten years ago, we weren't in a place in our careers to do this," Busch said. "We are now in a better spot in our careers to be able to do this."

Adding Busch as a fourth driver is curious, since Ryan Newman loses his ride with Stewart-Haas after this year because, as of last month, SHR didn't have a sponsor for a fourth team. Co-owner Gene Haas solved that issue by deciding to have his Haas Automation company bankroll Busch's new team.

Explaining the decision, Haas said: "Ryan has been an excellent driver. I think he's been a great sponsor driver. I am now going to be the sponsor [and] I just simply wanted a change and an opportunity to do something different. It gives me a chance to direct things the way I wanted to direct them."

Haas acknowledged he charged ahead with the Busch negotiations before informing Stewart, who is recuperating from a broken leg suffered in a racing accident.

"I didn't have really a chance to talk to Tony about it at all, since he wasn't really talking to anybody," Haas said. "So I kind of did this on my own, probably overstepped my authority a tick. I'm not used to having too many authorities to work with.

"I did realize that Tony might be a little bit upset about it. He was a little upset. At first he said, 'We can't really do this, because this is going to be too much of a load on the team.' He actually is an astute businessman. He thought about all these little things, where are we going to get the people, the money, where are the buildings going to come from. I didn't think about any of that.

"When I finally did talk to him, he was saying, 'Maybe we should wait a little while.' [But] I kind of made an offer to Kurt. If he takes it, I'm not backing down. About a week later, Tony said, 'OK, all right.' "

Asked how the four drivers will get along, Greg Zipadelli, SHR's director of competition, joked that they've built a "rubber room" at their Kannapolis, N.C., headquarters. They may actually need such a room for the drivers and Haas.

With four IndyCar races remaining this year, Helio Castroneves holds a 39-point lead over Scott Dixon heading into Sunday's third Grand Prix of Baltimore (2 p.m., NBC Sports). Ryan Hunter-Reay is third, 62 behind Castroneves. Marco Andretti, fourth in points (0 wins), is 10 points behind Hunter-Reay.

Hunter-Reay won last year's race. Ryan Briscoe was runner-up. Will Power won the race 2 years ago.

Power prevailed in Sunday's race at Sonoma, Calif., after Dixon, the leader, was assessed a drive-through penalty for a pit-safety violation late in the race. Dixon, winner of the IndyCar race at Pocono in July, finished 15th.