KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 Snickers Toyota Camry TRD, Joe Gibbs Racing
What can you use from your past history here?
“Your visuals and your frame of reference I feel like – the inside white line and the curbing. That doesn’t seem like it has changed much, so obviously being able to remember some of that once you get out there but besides the that, the way the cars drive, the way the cars are is irrelevant, not even close to the same as those 2005, 2006 and 2009 Xfinity cars were when I ran here – I think those are the three years I ran here – I don’t know that it is going to be similar.”
Do you remember those races well?
“I remember winning in ’09, but ’05 and ’06, I do not remember.”
What should be done with the All-Star race?
“I don’t know – an off weekend. Seriously. I’ve won this year, so I don’t know if it’s how the calendar works or leap year but having an off week would be nice. This question was asked last week, and I said – we’ve done enough with the All-Star race in years past that now every race is now an All-Star race. Stages started in the All-Star race; double-wide restarts started in the All-Star race. Other things started in the All-Star race, so we now have that in our everyday racing on every single weekend. It’s not that it’s different, it’s just that you are racing for a million dollars in that one particular race, but honestly, I think second-place takes home what a regular Xfinity Series win is throughout the Xfinity season. It is quite a financial jump, yeah, so. I think I went too far there.”
What has been the biggest surprise and biggest frustration with the Next Gen car?
“I’ll start with the biggest frustration. I think passing, traffic. This car is worse in traffic than the previous car. I feel like all of the underbody stuff is not at all what we anticipated it to be. The cars drive fun. They are good. The pleasant part of it is that they drive good when they are by themselves, and they have full air. If what we were striving to do was to better with cars in traffic, we did not do that. That’s kind what I feel like has been the biggest struggle in myself and around my team is some of that, so what do you do to fix that? I don’t know. I think there is a Martinsville test in the next week or two and I’ve been highly politicking to take all of the underbody off and let us go make a couple of runs with that and see what we can figure out with that. It would also save the team owners a heck of a lot of money if we trashed those components and went on without them from here on it. It wouldn’t hurt my feelings.”
Have you noticed that the intermediates have become more competitive with the new car?
“There’s definitely been the good guys. The guys that are good can come through traffic better than the guys that are mediocre or the guys that aren’t very good can’t come through traffic. I guess when you are frustrated that you can’t come through traffic you need to get your stuff better, but you can’t really do that throughout a race. It’s hard to change enough on those cars to make a big enough difference in the event, while in the event. I guess to me, I won’t argue that fact. Unfortunately, we could’ve should’ve won Vegas, could’ve should’ve won Kansas. A Toyota car did win Kansas. We were fast up front at Charlotte and then when we spun again the underbody – we killed the underbody. The car was terrible the whole rest of the day all because of a spin. I don’t know that spinning while battling for the lead to stay in the lead to have a potential to win a stage. People would say, well, why don’t you just concede the position? Because there are stage points in 30 laps or so. It’s just a matter of trying hard and trying to drive the thing. Sometimes they step out from underneath you and you would like to not have to pay such a huge penalty.”
Would tires make more of a difference if they had more of a fall off at these short tracks?
“Yes, I believe that tires being the name of the game. That’s the first thing that touches the pavement – it’s very important. I’ve been slated to do the Martinsville test, so I hope that I can do my due diligence and do my job to help with that product and make that what it needs to be, but I also need help around me with the decision makers in our industry to listen to input and be able to utilize that to understand what will make a good race.”
What do you think about changes to Sonoma this season?
“This car is faster on the road courses, because it has more grip. It is a more central built racecar meaning that it’s not just built to go left. I don’t think the race will be any much longer unless (Will it be more competitive?). It should be. All of the cars are the same right? So, it should be more competitive. It’s just a matter of who runs over who – if we look like the local go kart track or we look like professionals. That will determine the race length.”
Toyota struggled at Phoenix; do you worry that is going to carry over to here?
“I don’t know. You can kind of compare Phoenix, Richmond, Loudon, Gateway – those all kind of fit in the same family. Loudon and Gateway I think for sure are really close. Phoenix, really close – just places that are harder to pass. Aero means more. Being out front, clean air, being at the bottom of the racetrack, line wrapping the curbs, all of that sort of – there is curbs here, rumble strips, whatever. Phoenix is kind of more open. With the aero deficiencies we discussed earlier, with Martinsville not being great, Phoenix not being great, am I looking forward to this weekend? Probably not. That’s the short answer. I do feel like we have learned more and hopefully enough about this car that we are better this weekend.”
With the Playoff point leaders being bunched together, does that make you focus more on getting those points?
“My answer to that or my mindset to that is you want to create some separation for yourself amongst the rest of your competitors. That betters you throughout the Playoffs. With everyone being so close together and keeping bunched up and with the season being as unpredictable, up and down for everybody, Playoffs could be that exact same way – where there are just way more unknowns. I think it was (Jeff) Gluck who asked a few weeks ago, who is your championship favorite right now? We are all like who knows? I feel like that you are still at that point to say the Gibbs guys have been fast at the mile-and-a-halves. I would say the TrackHouse guys have been fast about everywhere. The Phoenix style track we struggled. The Penske guys were a bit better. There was an SHR (Stewart-Haas Racing) car that won that race. Again, I don’t even know where to go, but certainly Playoff points are always on everybody’s minds. That was on my mind last week in the first stage trying to win that first stage to get that Playoff point knowing how important those are going to be when it comes time.”
Your brother, Kurt, is coming up to help with Brexton’s racing tonight. Is that helpful?
“No. (laughter). Too many cooks in the kitchen. You need one Chief and the rest Indians. Yes, I have one guy who does our program, and we race junior sprints, outlaw karts, quarter midgets, now I’m adding a micro to that. We’ve got a lot going on. I beat on Aaron a little bit just the fact that let’s get some stuff done – let’s get the cars built. They should be sitting there ready to go. He’s like ‘In what time?’ But my dad’s there. I really don’t know what my dad does (laughter). I think he creates more chaos than he helps, sometimes. He’s a little difficult as you can imagine (laughter). Do I need another guy? Yes. I need another guy, so if anyone is out there that is looking. I do need another guy. Now this job does not pay great, right? It is Brexton Busch that is paying you, so he doesn’t have a whole lot of income right now. He’s working on it, but we are working hard. Kurt (Busch) is coming which is great. A little bit of help from the uncle. He can about set air pressures, so I’ve just got to tell him what I want.”
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