OBSERVATIONS Rick Minter's
1. Why would Nextel Cup regulars want to compete on the Busch Series?

NASCAR Kevin Harvick won Saturday's Pepsi 300.

Busch Series points leader Kevin Harvick says he can answer that with a question of his own. "Would you rather be on a race track or sitting in your motorhome watching a race and trying to find something Four major questions worth answering as NASCAR heads to Phoenix: to do ... bored to death?" he asked last week at Nashville Superspeedway, where he was racing while most of his peers rested on Easter weekend. "I enjoy being at the track and would be here anyway with my cars if I wasn't driving.

"I know there's talk that a lot of guys don't like the Cup guys in the Busch Series, but ... I don't think it's an issue of who's racing in the Busch Series until we start sending quality cars home."

Harvick is atop the Busch Series standings despite driving different cars for different owners and with different sponsors. But for all but one race for the remainder of the season, he'll be in Richard Childress' No. 21 Chevrolet, which he drove to victory in Saturday's Pepsi 300 at Nashville.

On the Cup side, he's ninth in points, 204 points behind leader Jimmie Johnson.

"Right now, life is good," Harvick said following his 18th career Busch Series victory.

Trailing Harvick in the Busch standings are fellow Cup drivers Denny Hamlin, Clint Bowyer, J.J. Yeley and Carl Edwards.

2. Just exactly when should a driver, especially a young one, take it easy in a race, rather than stand on the gas pedal every lap?

Carl Edwards said he's in the process of figuring that out for himself.

Edwards, who finished the 2005 season tied for second in Nextel Cup points, enters this weekend's race at Phoenix 22nd in the standings and with a new crew chief,Wally Brown. His car has been fast every week this season, but the results don't show it.

And why is that?

"I don't think we need to be trying as hard," he said, pointing out that he was too aggressive too early in races at Atlanta, Daytona and Texas and wasted chances for good finishes.

"I think that if we could calm down a little bit that we'd be awesome," he said. "This is all still pretty new, and you have to go through all of it to learn everything. I'm learning a lot, even through this bad stuff."

3. Is there a place in NASCAR for public pit-road confrontations between drivers' spouses or girlfriends or fiancees?

The consensus in the garage is "No."

The question arose after a pit-road confrontation two weeks ago at Texas Motor Speedway between Greg Biffle's girlfriend, Nicole Lunders, and Eva Bryan, Busch's fiancee, after the two drivers wrecked on the track.

Television cameras showed Lunders in Busch's pit area, apparently scolding Bryan.

"If I was Greg Biffle, I'd have been pretty irate when I got home and there'd have been a pretty serious conversation (with Lunders)," Kevin Harvick said. "I thought it was pretty embarrassing, and I think I would have been pretty embarrassed if I was him. If you leave it between the drivers, it gets handled between the drivers."

Harvick's wife, DeLana, agreed.

"There's absolutely no reason to confront another spouse," she said. "They absolutely have nothing to do with what happened on the track, period. It's inappropriate and it's unacceptable."

But DeLana did acknowledge that emotions often run high at the track.

"It's hard to hold it in," she said. "I understand the knee-jerk reaction, but you just have to hold it in a little bit, and that's not always easy."

4. As the Nextel Cup season gets in full swing, which driver will emerge to add his name on the list of likely contenders for a berth in the championship-deciding, season ending, 10-race Chase for the Nextel Cup?

Kyle Busch is looking like one to watch when the championship field is cut to 10 following the Sept. 9 run at Richmond. After seven races, he's seventh in the standings, 113 points behind his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson, who leads the standings. Busch has two top-five and four top-10 finishes and clearly is pleased with his performance.

"It's been good just being able to run as good as we have," Busch said. "But I'm looking more toward the middle of the year and getting in the Chase.

"Right now, we're trying to keep things working like they are and stay within the top 10 and have that opportunity [to be a part of the Chase]," Busch said.