ESPN Sprint Cup

Kyle Busch can't escape the limelight these days -- although he's not there for the reasons he'd prefer.

Coming off a pair of wins in the final 12 races in 2005, Busch was preparing for a superb sophomore season. And his sitting sixth in points after a third-place finish at Las Vegas shows that might yet be the case.

For now, though, people are more intent on talking about Busch's driving than about where he finishes. At Daytona, many thought his exuberance got the best of him in the Budweiser Shootout and he was penalized for aggressive driving in the Daytona 500.

At Las Vegas, he again was on the receiving end of Tony Stewart's ire, as the defending Nextel Cup champion couldn't believe Busch was racing him so hard for position with -- by Stewart's estimation -- plenty of time left in the race.

Busch, however, saw things differently, as he made clear after the race.

"The first time we really got going after each other was with about 40 [laps] to go -- maybe about 45 to go or something like that," Busch said. "That's the perfect amount of laps to go where it's time to dig in deep and get after it and get on top of the wheel and start going. There is no more rolling over and playing dead and letting guys go and stuff like that … it's time to race and it's time to get after it, and that's what I was doing.

"If I might have aggravated Stewart a little bit, then I apologize to him for that."

Stewart, though, said he was frustrated that Busch was holding him up with 80 laps to go, not 40 or 45.

"What I'm upset about is that, with 80 laps to go, we're sitting there for 15-20 laps behind [Busch] trying to get by and he's holding us up for no reason," Stewart said. "With 80 laps to go, he's holding us up and we all have another pit stop to make."

Either way, Busch was wise enough to realize he wasn't going to win a public-relations battle with Stewart and said he didn't feel as if Stewart was picking on him just because he's 20 years old. Instead, he said that maybe he'd done something wrong during the race he didn't realize that triggered Stewart's displeasure.

"I'm inside my race car, and I can't see what I'm doing outside of it," Busch said. "If I slipped up and slid in front of him one time, and whatever, then it was just my mistake on that part. We need to have another sit-down I guess and try to figure out exactly what I did wrong so I can try to change it and fix it."

Busch could only guess at what set off Stewart, but said he was simply running his own race and could only do so much without putting his own performance on the line.

"When I had Tony behind me, he was always charging into the corners real far and getting up underneath my spoiler and getting me loose," Busch said. "That was one of the problems why I was holding him up. If I could actually get some clean air on my spoiler and get away from him a little bit, I could drive away, which is what I did.

"I kept having to run a line that would keep my car stable getting into the corners, which was making it slower for me because I couldn't arc it in as much as I wanted to. Otherwise, I'd spin out and back it into the fence. It was just one of those deals where being able to try to get a little bit of clean air surrounding my car was going to be better for me, and that was what happened."

There were times when Jimmy Spencer could get blamed for igniting an incident even when he was at the other end of the track from where it began. These days, that seems to be the case when it comes to Busch.

Sure his performance at Daytona opened him up to criticism, and he has admitted racing too hard for the lead in the Busch Series race at Mexico City, but he knows the spotlight has a way of finding him these days.

"The Bud Shootout was a tough spot there because I was waving for a lap and a half trying to come to pit road and Denny Hamlin passes me down the back straightaway and then I tried to get down in front of Stewart and he was there and there wasn't enough room," Busch said. "We rubbed fenders there, and then I was racing with Mark Martin and stuck my nose in a little bit too far where it shouldn't have been. I thought he was going to pass for the lead, and I wasn't going to go with him because I knew he wasn't going to be able to get it done. I was just going to stay on the bottom and he tried coming back down and we touched.

"But then in the 500, Stewart and I got together with four laps to go. When there are four laps to go in the Daytona 500, what are you going to do? You're going to try to block somebody or are you just going to get him go and get freight-trained all the way back to 30th or whatever? The racetrack is not only theirs but it's mine, too. That's the only thing that I'd like to try to gain a little respect on. I race fine with [drivers like] Mark Martin, Matt Kenseth, Jimmie Johnson and Kasey Kahne today -- everybody I was ever around. For some reason, it's 40 laps to go and I'm digging in deep and getting on top of my steering wheel and not letting Tony Stewart pass me, and for some reason, I've got a problem. So I don't know."

It would be easy to grow timid in such a spot, but Busch vows that won't be the case. To give ground now would define him as weak in the eyes of his fellow competitors, and that's no way to go about chasing a Nextel Cup championship.

Busch will continue to race his way and take his chances with his peers in the process.

"I just go out there and do my best," Busch said. "All I can do is go out there and drive my own race car to the best of my ability and the best it is capable of doing."

Mark Ashenfelter is an associate editor at NASCAR Scene magazine, which has a Web site at www.scenedaily.com.