L.A. STREET RACE: BUSCH WINS FIVE-MINUTE DASH TO EARN LINEUP'S NO. 3 SPOT.

Byline: Rich Hammond Staff Writer

The tight and treacherous layout of the L.A. Street Race's road course didn't phase Kurt Busch, but one tiny piece of aluminum almost ruined his day.

Busch, preparing to qualify for today's NASCAR Southwest Series race Sunday, broke his shifter pulling out of his pit stall to begin his lap. In accordance with series rules, he had only five minutes to repair the car, or he would be disqualified from the first day of qualifying and start no better than 21st in today's race.

``I knew we had the crew and the parts to get it fixed, but we only had five minutes,'' said Busch, the series' point leader. ``Actually, we had to have the car running in five minutes, so we were pushing the car down pit lane while one of my guys was still inside trying to fix the shifter.''

With a new metal shifter, Busch turned in the third-fastest lap Sunday in 53.045 seconds and starts behind polesitter Greg Pursley and Ken Schrader in today's 1 p.m. race. The first 20 spots were determined by Sunday's qualifying, and 16 drivers will join the field this morning - a dozen through a second round of qualifying and another four through provisional sponsor selections.

Pursley claimed the L.A. Street Race pole for the second consecutive year. Last year, he led for more than half the race before he crashed when he tried to lap a slower car.

``I'm going to try to be a little more careful this year,'' he joked. ``I have some experience with road racing on motorcycles, so I probably have a little advantage over some of these guys. But the drivers on this series are so competitive that anybody in the top 10 has a shot at winning.''

The driver who turned in the second-best time Sunday will not get to race today. Ross Thompson, normally a driver on the Craftsman Truck series, volunteered to qualify the No. 33 car for Schrader, a regular on the Winston Cup circuit who was in South Carolina for the Pepsi Southern 400 and finished ninth. Schrader was expected to fly into Los Angeles late Saturday night.

``I knew what the job description was when I agreed to this, so I'm not really disappointed,'' Thompson said. ``I'll stick around tomorrow and try to help Kenny, give him some tips about the track.''

Ron Hornaday Jr., one of the top drivers on the Craftsman Truck series, qualified fourth, while Kevin Harvic, Craig Raudman, Dennis Dyer, Rudy Revak, Damon Lusk and R.K. Smith round out the top 10. Kenny Irwin, also a Winston Cup regular, will have to qualify his own Southwest Series car because his designated driver, Jon Zaretski, finished 23rd.

``There's so many great drivers in this race,'' Pursley said, referring to Schrader, Hornaday and Irwin. ``When all those guys come down here to compete, it makes you want to work that much harder.''