Busch Series
The Busch Series is a stock car racing series owned and operated by NASCAR. It is NASCAR's second division, and is a proving ground for drivers who wish to step up to the organization's top level, the Nextel Cup.
The series emerged from NASCAR's old Sportsman division, which was formed in 1950 as NASCAR's short track race division. It became the Late Model Sportsman series in 1968, and soon featured races on larger tracks, such as Daytona International Speedway.
The modern-day Busch Series was formed in 1982, when Anheuser-Busch sponsored a newly reformed late-model sportsman series with its Budweiser brand. It switched sponsorship to the Busch brand in 1984, and in 1986, was renamed from the Sportsman series to the Busch Grand National Series. Grand National was dropped for the series' title in 2003.
Busch Series cars are slightly smaller versions of their Nextel Cup counterparts. In the past, car makes in the Busch Series were represented by models that were not used in Cup. Also in the past, Busch cars ran V-6 engines while the Cup cars ran V-8's, but all cars in both series now run V-8's.
The series has become a minor league series in recent years, but is frequently populated with Cup regulars, especially on the weekends where a Busch race is run on a Saturday prior to a Nextel Cup race being run at the same track on a Sunday, which is common. Seven-time Winston Cup champion Dale Earnhardt was the first winner of a Busch Series race, and the winningest driver in series history is Mark Martin, who won most of his races while driving in Winston Cup at the same time. Cup regulars tend to be criticized for racing in the Busch series, leading to a Usenet group coining the oft-used term "Busch-Wackers" to describe such drivers, but many NASCAR historians contend that without Cup drivers in Busch, and the large amount of fan interest that they attract, the series would cease to exist.
On August 5, 2004, NASCAR announced that the Busch Series would hold a points-paying race in Mexico City at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez on March 6, 2005. The track has hosted a Champ Car race since November 2002, and will do so again this November.
Busch Series champions:
