Kurt Busch comes into The Winston on Saturday night locked, loaded and ready for some hunting -- namely a victory and the pot of gold that comes with it.

NASCAR's rising stars -- a group that also includes Ryan Newman, Jimmie Johnson, Matt Kenseth, Tony Stewart and Dale Earnhardt Jr. -- have been getting a lot of attention lately. In fact, veteran Ricky Rudd recently complained they are getting too much attention from fans, media and especially NASCAR officials.

Rudd's comments could be considered mild jealousy. But, since Rudd, 45, will set a series record for consecutive starts next Sunday in Concord, N.C., and is in the final year of his contract with Robert Yates Racing, there has been strong hints about retirement at season's end after nearly a quarter-century on the circuit.

But there's also some truth in what Rudd says about Winston Cup's young guns. There's no denying they've had a significant impact in this season's first 11 races. Right near the top of the list is Busch, who is third in the standings behind points leader Sterling Marlin. Right behind Busch is another teammate, and one of the "old guard" that has shown this season he still has some fire left in him, Mark Martin.

"Yeah, it seems like the young guns are getting a lot of attention this year, but if you look at the win column, that's where it's at," said Busch, driver of the No. 97 Ford. "A lot of teams have put younger drivers in their cars, a lot of younger owners have put a lot of faith in those young drivers, and sponsors want to win right away. That was the reason I got brought to Winston Cup. John Deere (the team's sponsor at the time) wanted to get to Victory Lane and they wanted to see the No. 97 program turned around. So, it seems as if a lot of attention has been turned toward the young guys, but that's where the wins have been coming from.

"It seems like we are getting a lot of attention, but we are the ones putting up some results, and it doesn't necessarily come at the veterans' expense. It's just a change, so to speak, in the racing world, where the late Davy Allison created this young, energetic, youthful driver to the scene. Jeff Gordon followed suit, Tony Stewart, Dale Jr. and Matt Kenseth in their rookie year battle, and with Kevin Harvick winning two races in his rookie year and us coming on strong in our sophomore season."

Busch, indeed, has turned a miserable rookie season last year -- finishing 27th -- into an outstanding second-year effort. He has one win (at Bristol, Tenn.), a second-place run in Fontana, Calif., was third at Talladega, Ala., and began the year with a fourth-place showing at the Daytona 500.

Not only has Busch developed into a more patient driver in his second season, equally as important to his success has been the pairing up with veteran crew chief Jimmy Fennig. It was during the off-season that Fennig, who had been Martin's long-time crew chief, and Busch's former crew chief, Ben Leslie, switched teams and drivers.

The switch has worked wonders, judging by where Busch and Martin are at in the standings.

"Jimmy Fennig came to me at the beginning of the year when things got moved around and said, 'We're going to win this championship,'" Busch said. "It was tough to see that right away. I'm one that thinks realistically about goals, and the goals we set out to do were the same as the goals we set out with in our rookie year: that was to win a few races, to be in contention at 90 percent of these races. So far, we've had 11 races, and we've been in contention in 10 of those races to win that race. It seems like we've made a 180-degree turn from where we were at last year."

That's a far cry from last season, when, Busch said, "nothing went our way."

"The luck we had last year, things just multiplied when we had one bad thing go wrong," Busch said. "It just seemed like everybody had to go through that character building year last year.

"You learn so many different things when you bring in an experienced crew chief to bring more out of you. When you have somebody that you're working side-by-side with, that has so much more of an education than you do, who is willing to lend it to you, one that will call you to make sure you think about something or one that goes out of his way, instead of just sitting on that experience and having somebody dig around it and through it to find what they need out of it, he knows what situation is coming about and he's going to prepare me for it. That's helped me understand more about the race car, about drafting and about getting around the racetrack as fast as we can."

One example of last season's bad luck was the spring race at Martinsville, Va., where Busch was running third with 100 laps to go before crashing into Rudd. Busch wound up with a flat tire, came into the pits to have it replaced, and promptly had a brake line snap that caused him to eventually finish 22 laps behind winner Dale Jarrett.

	Kurt Busch is flourishing in his second Winston Cup season.

Then there was the race at Rockingham, N.C., near the end of last season. Busch was leading the race with 100 laps to go and only five cars on the lead lap, when the motor in his Taurus overheated, causing the engine to implode. There was also a faulty alternator at Darlington, S.C., that kept him from challenging for the lead.

In short, it was just a series of mishaps that turned what Busch was hoping would be a promising rookie year into one he'd rather forget.

"We had a lot of mechanical issues that may have been caught by an experienced team, so to speak," he said. "It just never seemed to go our way. I know I made a few mistakes, or whether it was working with three different crew chiefs in my rookie year. I don't think any of those things helped us elevate ourselves to the top of our game and to run for Rookie of the Year. We flat-out got beat for it by Kevin Harvick, who won two races and for us not even able to compete for wins. It was a year where luck just didn't go our way, and it may have been preparation or depth within in the team.

"Now, things have turned around. This year has been more like 2000, when I won Rookie of the Year in Craftsman Trucks. We won four races, finished second in the points. This year has been more like that year, being competitive every race and learning from subtle mistakes, not huge mistakes. Our worse finish has been 28th, when we got caught up in a wreck at Darlington."

Fennig hasn't been the only key to Busch's outstanding season. There's also his teammates: Kenseth, Martin and Jeff Burton.

And Busch isn't too proud to admit he has borrowed attributes from each of them in an effort to make himself a better racer.

"What I try to is pull the best thing out of all of them and throw it into one and go out there and race my car, whether it's the drafting experience of Jeff Burton, the short-track wisdom that Matt Kenseth has, or whether it's the sure-grit determination that Mark Martin has on these speedways," Busch said. "There's a lot of experience that I see out there and you have to utilize it to your best ability when it comes time to use it."

As the youngest driver on the team, Busch is subjected to a lot of good-natured ribbing, particularly from Burton.

"Hell, the kid looks like he's 14," Burton said.

Burton laughed heartily at a recollection from this year's NCAA Final Four men's basketball tournament.

"Kurt and I were both at some dinner function prior to the Final Four," Burton said. "I was sitting at a table with this guy when Kurt walked by. The guy said to me, 'Boy, that kid is sure young. What is he, like 16?' I turned to him and said, 'Why, that's Kurt Busch, the guy that won the Winston Cup race at Bristol on Sunday. The guy looked at me and said, 'Nooooooo way.' He couldn't believe it. I told him, 'Believe it, because he did.'"

A couple weeks later during a rain delay in Fort Worth, Texas, Burton got in another zinger in about his young teammate, telling reporters Busch would not be coming into the press room as planned: "Kurt didn't want to come in here to the media room because he cut himself shaving for the first time ever this morning. Hell, I didn't even think he started shaving yet."

But on a more serious note, Busch, along with his three teammates, will make history Saturday night in The Winston. No other team has ever had four drivers qualify to race in the lucrative, non-points exhibition event. And with this season's new "Survival of the Fastest" format, Busch is ready to show he intends to be in the hunt from the green to checkered flag of the high-stakes shootout.

"There's a lot of stats and numbers behind The Winston this year," he said. "I've got a great opportunity with Jimmy Fennig. He's won The Winston in the past and it's my first trip into the event, so there's a lot to be learned and a lot of money at stake.

"(The Winston's format) reminds me of the Saturday night short track type race, where they put on a special event with street stocks or mini-stockers, where if you're the last car on the track, you're sent home, and it happens every two laps. They send the slowest race car on the race track into the pits. That's what's going to happen, starting at 27 cars, going down to 20, and then down to 10 for that final segment. That's our goal, to be in that final segment, to give our Ford a ride right there at the end."

But once Saturday night is over, it's back to thinking about the 25 races remaining on the schedule, especially the crucial upcoming summer swing.

"As the season progresses through the summer months, we're going to be hitting the Dovers, the Poconos, the Michigans, Daytona for a second time and Chicago," Busch said. "I'd like to see a win in that group and at least two more in the final quarter. I think we're capable of making that four-win mark, which puts you in contention for a championship effort.

"And, when you put together 20 top-10 efforts, that'll give you a pretty good estimate of where you'll probably wind up at the end of the year. Those are the objectives for this team. We know how competitive we were in the first segment this year and know what we can capitalize on for some of these races down the road.

"It helps a lot to do the homework at home, to develop the rapport in the shop, and things have gone that much smoother. You run quite a bit more running up front with the big dogs, so to speak. … So far, it's been a great year and we're just looking forward to more success."

Jerry Bonkowski covers NASCAR for ESPN.com.