By Kevin Mills,Staff Writer

OXFORD – The hardest thing to negotiate Tuesday might have been lunch.

Kyle Busch saw plenty of crunching and flying debris, but it wasn’t the new car or the foreign track. While the NASCAR Nextel Cup rookie prepared for Sunday’s TD Banknorth 250, he broke briefly for lunch and had his first lobster.

“I’ve had lobster before, but not in its full form,” said Busch.

“They had the directions out there with how to break it and crack it. I was like I can’t do that.’ So I think it was my sister who did it for me. So that was pretty cool.”

So Busch’s trip to Maine has already produced some benefits, but he hopes more will come.

Just like his brother Kurt last year, Busch is hoping to challenge for the $25,000 prize in Maine’s premier auto race.

Kurt Busch finished 13th in the race last year. The defending Nextel Cup champion could not return, but his younger brother was interested in taking his place.

“Coming up here and running a late model race, it’s something we’ve grown up doing in Las Vegas,” said the 20-year old. “It’s just fun local short track racing. You don’t get to do that much anymore. Last year, I went to Slinger, Wisconsin and was able to run the Nationals up there. I’m just trying to travel around a little bit and run with some different teams to see how we do. I’m just trying to have a good time. It’s an off weekend. So there’s no real pressure on. So you just try to do what you can.”

Busch got his first look at the car he’ll be racing and the track on which he’ll compete Sunday.

He took a series of laps in the SP2 Motorsports Lux Enterprises No. 5 Chevrolet Monte Carlo, progressively lowering his lap times along the way.

“The track’s unique,” said Busch. “It’s pretty neat. I wish there was more than that one single groove that you run. There might be two grooves developed but to me, running the bottom is going to be the way to go.

“The only way to pass is to move somebody out of the way or get a good run on them.”

Car owners Steve Perry and Scott Pullen were on hand with the brand new red car primed for Busch.

He’ll be a teammate with local veteran Mike Rowe, who provided Busch a helpful tour of the track in his Chevrolet pickup.

“He took me around the race track and helped me lay out a base plan that I need to work on and learn,” said Busch. “We were wishing he’d brought his car, and I could have followed him around, and we could have learned a bit more.”

Busch was back in North Carolina on Tuesday night. He closed on a new home this week, and is moving in Wednesday and Thursday.

He’s also attending a race featuring a friend driving a car owned by Busch.

He’ll be back at OPS for practice runs Saturday morning.

“It’s pretty much everything and anything,” Busch said of work to be done on the car before Sunday’s race. “The biggest thing that we’ve been fighting so far is it’s loose down the straightaway. It’s pretty good in the corners, but it’s loose down the straightaway. We need to be able to work on getting that power down.”

Having Rowe as a teammate will certainly help his cause, but advice he’s gotten from his brother will prove beneficial as well.

Busch says his brother advised that he be sure that his car grips the corners well because being able to gain an advantage in the corners will be vital.

“He basically said how tough it is to pass,” said Busch. “You’re just trying to get out there and trying to get alongside somebody and if you’re not up to their door, they’re going to chop you. That’s kind of local short track racing. That’s late model style.”

Busch says these races provide a different style of racing than the Nextel Cup races to which he’s accustomed. He says its just a matter of reacquainting himself with the congestion of short-track action.

“You go to race tracks all over the country and you just show up and start practicing right off the bat,” said Busch. “You better be going 185 miles per hour because if you’re not, then you’re not going to be fast enough.

“I think its coming out here and just getting used to the late model feel again and the short track here. I’ve been racing cars for eight years. So you still have remembrances of what you’ve been able to do.”