Younger brother Kyle has had a fantastic season in his first year with Joe Gibbs Racing, as he has already grabbed five wins and currently leads in the standings.
Older brother Kurt has struggled, stuck in 22nd in the Sprint Cup standings heading into last Sunday's Lenox Industrial Tools 301 at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon, N.H.
Luck was with the elder Busch in Loudon, however, as he won a race that was called off on lap 284 because of rain, in front of a sellout crowd of 101,000. Kyle Busch was not as fortunate. He was spun out by Juan Pablo Montoya and finished in 25th.
With the win -- his first of the season -- Kurt Busch improved to 18th in the Sprint Cup standings.
Kurt Busch benefited from excellent pit strategy, as he stayed on the track despite all of the leaders pitting after an accident brought out the fifth caution of the day.
In lap 271, Dale Earnhardt Jr. dropped out of the groove to pit, but Jamie McMurray could not get out of the way and smashed into the back of Earnhardt's car at full speed.
McMurray did not see Earnhardt until the moment of the collision.
"I'd been running on the apron all day and I guess the 88 was pitting," McMurray said in a press release. "Certainly, it's my fault. I shouldn't have run into the back of him, but typically the spotters will tell you when someone is pitting. They'll wave their hands and no one ever said anything. I didn't see the 88 until I hit him. I still didn't know who I had hit until I looked afterwards."
The leader at the time, Tony Stewart, and many others ahead of Busch decided to pit in order to refuel.
Busch inherited the lead and held on to it until the skies opened up, giving him his first win of the season. Michael Waltrip came in second, while J.J. Yeley, Martin Truex Jr. and Elliott Sadler rounded out the top five.
The precipitation brought about a complete reversal in fortune, as Truex Jr. was the only racer who placed who was in the top 10 before McMurray crashed into Earnhardt.
"You know, I learned early on, before I even really made it up to the Cup level, that luck is definitely a player in racing," Kurt Busch said in the release. "I think Richard Childress defined luck the best. He says, 'When preparation meets opportunity, that's luck.' And we were prepared today, and the opportunity presented itself to pit when we did. You have to have a fast enough car, a prepared car. So things came into play for us."
This was just another frustrating incident for Stewart, who Kurt Busch beat even though Stewart had the better car and lead for 132 laps. Stewart ended the race in 13th.
Earlier in the year, Stewart gave up the lead to Ryan Newman in the last lap of the Daytona 500, and at the Coca-Cola 600 in Charlotte he suffered a cut tire with three laps to go and was passed by eventual winner Kasey Khane.
Stewart could not point to a singular cause for his struggles.
"I don't know how to put it into words right now," Stewart said in the press release. "Everybody's worked hard. It's not for a lack of effort by anybody on this Home Depot racing team by any means. It's just one of those years where everything that can go wrong goes wrong. We've had years where we couldn't do anything wrong, too. It's part of racing. The good thing is no matter what the outcome is today we get to do it again in six more days so we just do what we can."
It was a strange finish to what began as an ordinary race where drivers started conservatively.
Surprise pole-setter Patrick Carpentier started off in the lead, but was quickly overtaken by both Kevin Harvick and Bobby Labonte by the fifth lap.
Earnhardt would overtake Harvick for the lead by the 45th lap, but Harvick continued his strong racing and was back on top after the first green-light pit stops of the day, with Kahne and Earnhardt following closely behind.
By lap 141, Stewart had worked all the way from 28th at the start to the lead. Between lap 141 and 271, Stewart led all but two laps, but the rain would not begin while he was in the lead
Stewart had held off a furious charge by Jimmie Johnson to protect the lead when McMurray crashed into Earnhardt.
Next week, NASCAR will be back in action at Daytona International Speedway for the Coke Zero 400, powered by Coca-Cola. McMurray will look to bounce back from his 41st place finish by defending his title. The race is set begin at 8 p.m. on Saturday, July 5.
