By Bruce Martin

PA SportsTicker Contributing Editor

MARTINSVILLE, Virginia (Ticker) – Kyle Busch knows he probably won’t win The Chase.

After all he enters Sunday’s NASCAR Nextel Cup Subway 500 sixth in points, 280 behind the leader, Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jeff Gordon, with only five races remaining in the season.

But Busch has already won something just as valuable, and that’s the respect of his fellow drivers over the way he’s handled himself over the last half of the season.

It would have been easy for the 22-year-old younger brother of 2004 Nextel Cup champion Kurt Busch to pack it in after he was told in June that Dale Earnhardt Jr. would take over his ride in 2008. After all, many consider Busch to be the better driver over the two, although he is nowhere near as popular as the son of seven-time Cup champion Dale Earnhardt.

Team owner Rick Hendrick couldn’t pass on the marketing opportunities that Earnhardt brings his team in terms of sponsorship and attention, so when negotiations with Busch became heated, he was the driver that was pushed aside.

When Busch was told in June that he would be let go at the end of this season, it wouldn’t have been a surprise if he didn’t finish out the season at Hendrick.

That prophecy looked even more likely after the July 7 Pepsi 400 at Daytona, when Busch trashed his HMS teammates for not helping him draft past Jamie McMurray in a side-by-side battle across the finish line with McMurray beating Busch by just 0.005-seconds.

But instead of “packing it in” Busch toughed it out. He has handled himself professionally, has matured as a person and has gained the respect of fellow Hendrick drivers who at one time would have been more than happy to see him go to his new team, Joe Gibbs Racing, where he will be teammates with Tony Stewart and Denny Hamlin beginning next season.

“I’m extremely impressed,” said defending Cup champion Jimmie Johnson. “In working with Kyle over the years, I’ve always seen a guy that wants to do good and wants to be a champion and wants to be a race winner and loved working for Hendrick Motorsports. He’s done a lot of growing and maturing. We got him when he was so young, I guess that’s why he left Roush, the age moved to 18 and he wasn’t there yet. He’s done a lot of growing. Unfortunately, he’s done all of his growing in front of camera and national media and has made some mistakes, but we’re all seeing that progress.

“I couldn’t be more proud of him as a teammate and as a friend. He’s come a long way and I think he’s going to be a threat to deal with as he goes to Gibbs and goes further in his career.”

At 36, Gordon is the “elder statesman” of the team but like Busch, he was also a child star in NASCAR. The young Jeff Gordon of the 1990s was known for moments of immaturity and often played the blame game when things didn’t go his way on the race track.

The Jeff Gordon today has developed into the most professional, most articulate and best driver in the sport.

He can relate to Busch’s “growing pains” in NASCAR’s premier division.

“I’ve gotten to know Kyle just good enough to know that he’s a really good guy,” Gordon said. “He always means well, he always is trying to go out there and do things that he would be proud of and other people would be proud of but that doesn’t always come across that way. So call it misunderstood, call it make a few mistakes, whatever it may be.

“I think that because those things came sporadically, you weren’t exactly sure how it was going to go down, and I think the first couple weeks were still a little touch and go but since then, and I don’t know exactly what it is that’s transpired, but I was with Rick (Hendrick) this week and both of us were talking about how impressed we are with the way he’s been handling himself.”

Despite the age difference between the two drivers, Gordon has seen Busch improve as a driver, grow as a person and mature as an individual.

“No doubt about it, I think everybody has commented on how he seems to have really matured and grown over the last couple months,” Gordon said. “Maybe this whole experience of him leaving Hendrick and going to Gibbs, maybe that’s been kind of a life-changing thing for him. Prior to that, I still saw a lot of youthfulness in him and questioned some decision-making or some things that he would say publicly and just say ‘oh, man, I wish I could be there and just put a few words in his ears of maybe how to go about that’.

“Yet the last month or two, he’s just been phenomenal. He’s been handling himself first-class and through all that’s happened; you’d think that would be a time where maybe it would go the other way. So that’s been impressive and I think that Gibbs will be very fortunate to have him as a talent and also the way he’s been handling himself. He continues to do that and I think he’s going to be extremely tough to race against.”

More importantly, Busch has regained the respect of team owner Hendrick, who had to make the ultimate decision to choose Earnhardt and let the talented Busch go.

It’s never easy for a race driver to accept that the team owner would rather have another driver behind the wheel of a race car and Busch had to hear those words from Hendrick back in June.

But in October, Hendrick has praise for the driver.

“I’m really proud of Kyle,” Hendrick said. “I think that you’ve seen that he could easily have had an attitude or lost focus, but I think he and Alan and the whole team have really stepped it up.

“I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a situation in my 25 years where, you know, a guy knew he was going somewhere else, and has stayed focused and determined to do the best he can. It’s been real impressive what he’s done. I think he’s done a great job, and coming to victory lane, the way he handled the end of the Charlotte race (to congratulate Gordon after Busch finished third) shows a lot of maturity in Kyle.”

Busch showed that maturity on the track at Charlotte last Saturday night on a restart when it would have been easy for Busch to have knocked Gordon out of the way on a late restart. But they battled each other cleanly.

It’s like something clicked somewhere along the line for Busch.

“What’s been going on around me and within me and having better surroundings has been better for me,” Busch said. “I’m just figuring how to grow up, I guess, that’s been the biggest thing.”

And by growing up, that has brought Busch some much-needed respect.

“I have the same relationship with everybody else in this garage area as before,” Busch said. “Both years I’ve made The Chase I think guys have gotten a better sense of who I am. Have I gained more respect than I have before?

“Maybe a little.”

Busch may be a bit modest in that regard.

“I try to think about what I may be doing if I were a typical 22-year-old and that’s not what I want to be doing,” Busch said. “This is what I want to be doing.”