Thursday, Feb. 6, 2003 | 10:07 a.m.
SEBRING, Fla. -- There was no checkered flag, but Las Vegas native Kurt Busch felt like a winner Wednesday after turning 18 laps at Sebring International Raceway in Michael Jourdain Jr.'s Champ Car.
Busch, who drives a Ford Taurus for Roush Racing in NASCAR's Winston Cup series, was invited by Team Rahal to give its Ford-powered Lola a spin around the 1.669-mile short course during CART's annual spring training test days.
"It was an experience I could not pass up," Busch said, grinning. "But I'm going to stick to my day job, racing on Sundays and driving Winston Cup cars."
The 24-year-old racer from Las Vegas had never sat in a Champ car before climbing into the open-cockpit Wednesday under the watchful eyes of CART veteran Jourdain, who earlier gave Busch a quick tutorial during a ride around the track in a rental car.
Busch's only previous experience in an open-wheel car was in a much less powerful Formula Ford at a racing school about four years ago.
"That didn't even relate to this," Busch said.
When all was in readiness Wednesday, the crew cranked up the 700-horsepower Ford Cosworth turbocharged V-8 engine at the back of the Lola and cleared a path for Busch to leave the pits.
Busch stalled the engine after traveling about 10 feet.
The car was pulled back and restarted, and Busch was able to pull away this time, squealing the tires as he left his pit. As he approached the second turn of his second lap, the car skidded sideways and spun to a stop just short of a low concrete wall.
"I underestimated the cold tire situation," he said.
After being towed back to the pits and getting a tire change, Busch started to find the groove.
"Being out in the open air is a different way of life," said Busch, who also found considerable difference in handling and braking between the 1,550-pound Champ car and his 3,400-pound stock car.
"Being outside the car, there's elements of wind," he explained. "I didn't have a downforce- type helmet and that was the first thing to overcome. I had to almost hold my helmet down on the straightaway."
Busch also noted the Champ car produces about 4,000 pounds of downforce, much more than the 1,500 pounds from his Taurus.
"Generating speed through the corners is much different with the downforce," Busch said. "It feels three times as heavy at the end of the straightaway as what a Winston Cup car does, where a Winston Cup car is twice as heavy to begin with."
His first timed lap was just over 61 seconds -- about 103 mph. After that, Busch's time came down steadily, finally getting down to 54.72 -- about 110 mph - before a second spin ended his adventure.
By comparision, rookie Patrick Lemarie was the slowest at 53.44 seconds, 112.424 mph in CART's final session of the day, which ended just before Busch took to the track.
Sebastien Bourdais, another rookie, was fast in the session at 50.95 seconds, 117.920 mph.
Ray Leto, Jourdain's team manager, said, "With the differences in the cars and the subtleties of the gearbox, I thought Kurt's time at the end was quite impressive."
The driver thought he was just getting a handle on the car when his session ended.
"There were a lot of things to comprehend in a short time, and it takes about 20 laps to start to get the feel of it," said Busch, who returns to his stock car later this week to begin preparations for the season-opening Daytona 500 on Feb. 16. "That was really fun."
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