Sprint Cup Series: Kyle Busch, Toyota Find Way To Top

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You would be smiling, too, if things were going as well as they are for Kyle Busch right now.

FONTANA, Calif. -- One of Kyle Busch's goals when the 2008 Sprint Cup season began was to make Hendrick Motorsports look bad for dropping him to sign Dale Earnhardt Jr.

One of Toyota's goals when it signed Joe Gibbs Racing -- which coincidentally signed Busch -- from Chevrolet was to make life uncomfortable for HMS.

Both are off to a good start.

Busch followed his fourth-place finish in the Daytona 500 with a fourth on Monday at the rain-delayed Auto Club 500 to move into the points lead for the first time in his career.

In doing so he put Toyota on top, the first time in the history of the sport a foreign manufacturer has led the standings.

"It doesn't mean much right here in California,'' said Busch, who also leads the Truck Series standings after Saturday's win at California. "If the championship was paid for -- woo-hoo, yay for us -- but we've still got 33 weeks left in this deal.

"We'll take it now and hopefully hold on to it for a while and keep battling with [Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson]. We know they'll come back strong in the points. There's going to be some other contenders, too.''

Johnson and Gordon, Busch's former HMS teammates, finished second and third at California after going 25th and 38th at Daytona. They moved to eighth and 14th in the standings.

Neither is surprised that Busch is in this position, or that he's atop two series, and not far from the lead in the Nationwide Series.

"Kyle is a huge talent,'' Johnson said. "He's been able to show that in whatever he drives. It's awfully early in the year to put too much weight into it, but it doesn't surprise me because we've been teammates with him for a long time.''

Among the other contenders Busch referred to is JGR teammate Tony Stewart, who finished seventh on Monday to hold on to third in the standings.

Throw in Brian Vickers at No. 11 in the race and the standings and all three Toyota drivers are higher than any Toyota team a year ago.

JGR is a big reason. Busch and Stewart combined to lead 102 laps at Daytona. Teammate Denny Hamlin led 32.

Busch led another 14 on Monday, giving Toyota 152 laps led in two races. The Japan-based manufacturer led only 166 laps all of last season.

"Overall a good day -- a good solid points day for us,'' Busch said. "We'll take it. When you don't have a winning car all you can ask for is a top-5, so it's cool. The ultimate goal is to be in first place in points all year."

And prove former owner Rick Hendrick gave away the better driver to get Earnhardt.

By the way, Earnhardt is 23rd in the standings, 149 points behind Busch after finishing 40th at California thanks to a crash with HMS teammate Casey Mears early in the race on Sunday afternoon when weepers and rain forced the event to spill into Monday.

That has to provide some satisfaction to Busch, who during the preseason media tour was dripping with sarcasm when asked about Hendrick's decision to sign Earnhardt.

"Hendrick going out to get Junior, yeah, they're making money,'' he said. "Hell yeah, it was a smart decision. I wasn't making them any money. I was costing them money. I would agree to that.''

-- David Newton

Nationwide Series: Toyota, Stewart, Brought "A" Game To Fontana

FONTANA, Calif. -- Well, the real racing in the Nationwide Series has begun and it looks an awful lot like the racing did at Daytona -- at least in terms of the results sheet.

The restrictor plates of Daytona were replaced by carburetor spacers at Auto Club Speedway, but the Toyotas still ruled the roost.

The only good news for the likes of Carl Edwards, David Reutimann, David Ragan and Clint Bowyer is that Tony Stewart and Kyle Busch aren't planning on running all 35 Nationwide events.

And it's mathematically impossible for Stewart to win the championship while running just nine races. Even if he wins all nine of them -- and he's already won the first two -- he can't win the title.

And Busch isn't running enough races to win the title, either. All he's done is finish second to Stewart in each of the year's first two races.

The bad news -- at least for the rest of the field -- is that the two of them will be in Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas on Saturday (4 p.m. ET, ESPN2) at Las Vegas. And it will shock no one if they sweep the top two spots yet again.

It's awfully early to start talking about the championship, but the standings already have a familiar look once you eliminate Stewart and Busch from the equation.

Carl Edwards is third, 96 points behind Stewart. He's the first driver slated to run the full schedule and he's followed by David Reutimann, who is eight points behind Edwards. A year ago, Reutimann finished second to Edwards in the standings.

David Ragan is fifth in points, tied with Kevin Harvick. Ragan is running the full schedule.

Clint Bowyer, driving for Richard Childress Racing is 10th in points and 154 out of the lead. More importantly from his perspective is that he's just 59 points behind Edwards.

So after two weeks, it's clear that the Toyotas are coming into their own this season. Whether they'll be slowed down at Las Vegas is yet to be determined.

-- Mark Ashenfelter

Craftsman Truck Series: The Youngest Busch Brother Keeps Bashing

Federal law kept Kyle Busch off the track the first time he tried to race a Craftsman truck at Fontana, Calif.

Unfortunately for the regulars of the truck series, there wasn't some other statute to keep him away the second time.

The 22-year-old Busch -- barred from competing at the track in 2001 at age 16 because of a tobacco company's sponsorship of another race on the same weekend -- continued his recent dominance in the trucks, winning the San Bernardino County 200 on his first tour of the 2-mile oval in a Billy Ballew Motorsports pickup.

Busch outlasted Todd Bodine in a race far less eventful than a week ago at Daytona, where Bodine beat Busch. In the season opener, half the field was caught up in accidents, while at Auto Club Speedway only rookie Justin Marks (Bodine's Germain Racing teammate) wrecked and the final 52 of 100 laps were run under green.

Former champions Ron Hornaday, Mike Skinner and Ted Musgrave returned to the top 10 after poor finishes at Daytona, and Johnny Benson impressively finished third for a second race after starting at the rear of the field.

But 2006 champion Bodine is showing the most strength in the early season. He's not first in the standings, however, having surrendered 25 points after the No. 30 Toyota was found to have an illegal part during prequalifying inspection at Daytona.

Bodine and the rest of the familiar faces in the trucks won't miss Busch when he can't pilot the No. 51 Tundra due to conflicts with his Sprint Cup ride with Joe Gibbs Racing. In his past six truck races dating to the end of 2006, Busch has three wins and two seconds.

Laws can't keep Busch away from truck races anymore, but schedules can.

-- John Schwarb