Mammoth Blog

They're friends, colleagues and often share the same seat.

The mentor is well known and polarizing: fiery NASCAR star Kyle Busch.

The protégé?
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The mentor is well known and polarizing: fiery NASCAR star Kyle Busch.

The protégé?

He's Brian Ickler, who, during a news conference Thursday at Iowa Speedway, searched for at least one personality trait that distinguishes the pair.

"I throw stuff a lot less than Kyle does," said a grinning Ickler, who along with Busch, spoke with the media today before NASCAR Nationwide Series testing in advance of Saturday's U.S. Cellular 250 at Iowa Speedway.

Busch smiled and shrugged.

"I haven't thrown anything," the series points leader said.

Both Busch and Ickler own wins at the 7/8-mile asphalt track in Iowa.

Ickler won the Camping World East/West combination event in 2008, outpacing ringer Kasey Kahne. Busch won the same race May 17, topping Ickler.

He also has played an integral role in getting Ickler a NASCAR Camping World Truck Series ride -- his, the No. 51 Billy Ballew Motorsports Toyota.

"We're the same size, we fit the same belts," Busch said. "I might like mine a little tighter than he does, but we're still able to use all the same equipment and everything. So it makes things a lot easier. He's a good kid, really like working with him -- he's only a year younger than me, so it's fun to have a relationship off the track as well as on."

Busch, given his five Nationwide wins this season and eight-race streak of first- or second-place finishes, emerges as the obvious favorite -- along with fellow Sprint Cup star Carl Edwards -- for Saturday's 3:30 p.m. main event.

Iowa Speedway president Jerry Jauron said track officials expect the crowd to top 57,000, a number that drew a retort from track founder Rusty Wallace -- who was roasted later Thursday by friends and colleagues in a fundraiser for the NASCAR Foundation.

"That's a big crowd," Wallace said of the 57,000-plus figure. "That's more than Chicago had for a (Sprint) Cup (Series) race."

Speaking of Cup, Busch sees it as a future possibility for Iowa Speedway -- but peppered his comments with a few caveats.

"Anything's a possibility, for sure," said Busch, whose Cup team is racing Sunday at Pocono. "This place has some good amenities to it. It might not have all the grandstands it needs to accommodate a Cup race. It might not quite have the roads in or out to accommodate a traffic pattern, but that's about all I see it lacks. But you've got to look at NASCAR giving you a date before you can go to the county or city to work on those things -- to put up more structure here for grandstands, or put roads in or something like that. It's the chicken or the egg. It kind of takes one in order to get the other."

And the Cup schedule is currently full -- as is Busch's.

As for Ickler, Busch continues to offer tips and advice. Even comic relief.

"Kyle actually spotted for me at the ARCA race in Michigan, which was interesting," Ickler said. "I'm kind of, 'We've got 250 laps, I'm going to take what position I can get at the time, keep the fenders on it.' Kyle's more, put it on kill, four-wide, first corner, wide-open, on-the-outside kind of guy. So it was fun. I've never laughed so hard on the radio or had so much fun." source>>>