Kurt Busch's Chickens Come Home to Roost

The other shoe finally dropped Monday on Kurt Busch, and he's no longer the driver of the No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Dodge for Pense Racing.

It was sort of a surprise, but it should not have been.

Two things that Kurt Busch now knows are true are: you do not mess with a sponsor of Roger Penske's race teams, especially when the sponsor backs both the NASCAR and Indy Car portions of them; and if you act like a three-year-old (only with a much saltier vocabulary), you're going to get punished.

Kurt has now been bus-chucked by two (count 'em, two) top-flite NASCAR Sprint Cup Series organizations. There aren't all that many to begin with, and unless you want to drive without the benefit of a huge, tech-savvy team with row upon row of engineers, mechanics and other folks behind you, you should probably slap a governor on your runaway mouth and man up.

It's a shame, because Busch, when he's right, is one of those drivers who can get hot and take over a race. He did that in 2004 with Roush Fenway Racing, and he did it with Penske. He won the first Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, by eight points, and seemed like a sure bet to win more.

That it hasn't happened since is the way it sometimes goes, but the reality is, it's hard to drive fast when your right foot is permanently implanted in your mouth. Having been on his team radio net a lot over the past eight seasons, and having had his particular brand of sarcasm directed at me, I can honestly say I wonder why it took so long.

The Busch brothers are reviled by a good portion of the NASCAR fan base, and most of the time, it's warranted. Kurt tried hard to overcome his propensity to monologue, usually profanely, by hiding behind a veneer of syrupy charm. He was more like Eddie Haskell from the old "Leave It to Beaver" show than the guy who played him on TV, Ken Osmond.

That's not to say he didn't try to calm his more volatile nature. He did it that way because it was all he could do. His tenacity behind the wheel, and his ability, saved him from a fate that lesser drivers know all too well.

To put it another way, there's a reason he got on with Penske after showing his behind in Phoenix late in the 2005 season. The boy can drive. That said, driving isn't always enough.

The fact that he got fired (the release says it was a mutual separation, but that's the PR angle) shows that sponsors who pay beaucoup bucks to race teams still have a say in what goes on at the track and away from it, and there is such a thing, still, as moral turpitude.

If they can't sell gas and oil and other stuff with a foul-mouthed, bratty driver in the seat, then the bratty driver goes away and they find one who can drive and sell stuff too. Or, they take their megamillions to a team that already has one.

That's what happened here.

Kurt Busch looks around today and realizes that his options are not the greatest. All the rides are full, at least the top-flight rides, and the only one available is the one he just got chucked from at Penske.

While he's looking in the mirror, hopefully asking himself why he did what he did, let's hope he finds some clarity and begins to work post-haste on repairing the damage caused by an ill-advised gesture and 12 minutes of profanity.