One very happy villain

Amid the boos, red-hot Kyle Busch is enjoying winning

DARLINGTON, S.C. -- Is Kyle Busch cocky or justifiably confident?

Is Busch, the driver of the No. 18 Toyota who is unquestionably the hottest thing going as NASCAR heads to Lowe's Motor Speedway in Concord for its annual two-week stay during May, just arrogant and on a hot streak? Or is he at the top of his game?

Busch scored his third Sprint Cup victory of the season Saturday night, recovering from a mid-race setback and surviving what he estimated to be five or six brushes with the wall to lead 93 of the final 98 laps and win the Dodge Challenger 500 at Darlington Raceway.

Busch, who turned 23 on May 2, became the youngest driver to win a Cup race at Darlington, which opened in 1950, and he also won the fastest 500-mile race at the track with an average speed of 140.350 mph.

When he was done, Busch spun the tires on his Toyota to create a cloud of white smoke, then climbed from the car so that as the smoke cleared he could bow to a crowd that had booed him lustily all night.

"It's 'Thank you very much,' " Busch said of the bow, his version of Carl Edwards' post-victory back flip or Tony Stewart's climb up the fence. "But I can't get out of the car fast enough, man. I need to work on that. I'm trying to get more smoke built up."

Busch is smoking hot. He has three Nationwide Series and two Craftsman Truck Series victories to go with the three Cup wins.

"You can't just think that you're going to go the race track every weekend knowing you're going to win," Busch said. "You've got to think you can win and try your hardest to be able to win. You've got to go there knowing you've got a shot, knowing you're the best driver and knowing you've got the best guys working for you and that if you give it your all then the best is what you can get that day."

Busch has won two of the three truck races he's competed in at Lowe's Motor Speedway. He also has two wins and five top-five finishes in nine Nationwide (formerly Busch) Series races at the 1.5-mile track.

In Cup competition, though, this one hasn't been his favorite track. Busch has two top-10 finishes in four October tries, but he has never finished on the lead lap of the Coca-Cola 600.

Even when he doesn't win, Busch usually winds up being a big part of the story. Last year in the all-star race he was involved in a wreck with his older brother, Kurt. And the main reason Kyle Busch has fans so riled up is a May 3 incident at Richmond, Va., in which he bumped Dale Earnhardt Jr. with just more than two scheduled laps left, sending Earnhardt Jr. spinning out of the lead while Busch wound up second.

That set off the chorus of boos Busch heard before and after his win at Darlington.

"I don't care," he said. "I am here to race. I am here to win. If I win, it just makes them more upset and crying on their way home."

Jeff Gordon, who finished third Saturday behind Busch and Carl Edwards, knows all about being booed.

"I think if he had his choice he wouldn't be the villain," Gordon said of Busch, a former teammate at Hendrick Motorsports until Busch moved to Joe Gibbs Racing this year. "I know Kyle is a good guy, and he's a incredibly talented race car driver. There's no doubt about that.

"He just gets himself into situations that follow him. But having a love-hate relationship out there with the fans is not a bad thing."

Fans will have plenty of chances to express their feelings. And for now, at least, Busch digs that.

"It's pretty cool," he said. "We just need to keep that bull's-eye on us. Guys are looking at us and worrying about us. We're the target that they're shooting for. We're on top of the game for right now. (But) inevitably this streak is going to end. It's not going to keep going every single weekend. I've just got to keep my smiles on."