Kurt might have a jump, just by not being Kyle, but ...

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – I don’t know why fans still boo Kurt Busch. But it doesn’t matter. Fans don’t need a reason.

Busch gave them one once. He was new and brash and he was very good. At 31, however, he’s less young and less brash, although he’s still very good.

He’s also funny.

Somebody asks a public relations representative if she’ll provide a transcript of Busch’s interview Friday, and when she says she doesn’t think so, Busch asks: “If Danica (Patrick) were in here would there be a transcription?”

Kurt is married, and younger brother Kyle Busch recently gave his girlfriend a ring. Somebody asks if Kyle sought his advice.

“Kyle’s grown up and he got engaged all by himself,” Kurt says.

And on a wet, worthless, Florida Friday morning I saw Kurt hold open a door for a man who can’t boost his image or career.

So why don’t fans support you?

“Maybe I haven’t connected…as easily as I should,” Busch says.

“I love racing. I’m a racer at heart. I’ve come from nothing, from very humble beginnings. My story is the same as anyone out there sitting in the grandstands except I got a unique opportunity to drive a race car when I was 17 years old.

“Back in Las Vegas a guy called me up to go race his Late Model. But years before that I was sitting in the grandstands at Las Vegas Motor Speedway watching races. ... I was just a spectator.”

But there is no “just” and there is no justice. The NASCAR spectator has the ultimate power – the power of good and evil. And when fans determine that a driver is evil, their verdict is as permanent as a tattoo.

Busch drove his first full Cup season in 2001. In ’02 he finished third and in ’04 he won the championship.

He made Cup racing look no more challenging than a Sunday drive. He wasn’t a good ol' boy (racing had them then) and he used large words when small ones would do and he talked so studiously it was as if he was born without charisma.

Then I sat near him at a U2 concert and he no longer was Kurt Busch race car driver. He was merely Kurt. He was funny and friendly and I think he even made a drink run.

Had fans been there, they would have liked him. But they weren’t.

So how do you turn their opinion around?

“You don’t,” says Dale Jarrett, the former Cup champion and son of the legendary Ned.

That's easy for Jarrett, now a TV commentator, to say. Fans always loved him.

“I’d say that if you’re good at what you do, fans will respect you,” he says.

“But Jimmie Johnson proves that isn’t true. Kurt could buy every fan a cup of coffee or a Miller Lite jacket or a Miller Lite. They might like him. But the best way is to do what you do, the best you can.”

There are alternatives. At the 1989 all-star race at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Rusty Wallace, then a good guy, smacked into Darrell Waltrip, then a bad guy.

Waltrip went for a long slide and Wallace went to the finish line. Wallace collected $200,000 and Waltrip collected sympathy. Waltrip stopped being evil – until he said “Boogity, boogity, boogity” on TV.

If that doesn’t happen, Busch could change his name to Danica Earnhardt.