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[/media-credit]TOYOTA NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) Kyle Busch — Notes & Quotes Talladega Superspeedway – May 4, 2012
KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 M&M’s Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Are you looking forward to racing this weekend at Talladega? “It’s Talladega, so you never know what to expect here. I feel like we have two pretty good race cars with the No. 18 M&M’s Camry on the Sprint Cup side and No. 54 Monster Energy Camry on the Nationwide side. So far, so good, just kind of making sure the cars are comfortable. It’s hot out there. It’s going to be slick out there tomorrow and slick on Sunday getting out there in the pack and seeing all what it’s going to entail. Looking forward to hopefully coming out of here with a good, clean weekend.”
Do you think drivers will be able to tandem race during Sunday’s race? “I don’t think you can stay together at all. We’re running 230, 240 (water temperature) just pack drafting and then once you get pushed from behind or you have somebody close to you, it kind of moves you forward a little bit to the car that’s in front of you. You’re already 245, 250. That’s already border line for our engines. You can probably take them to 260, 265 on water temperature before you start pushing water, but we don’t want to jeopardize that and push water too early in the race and run ourselves out of water. Our limit is about 240 until two (laps) to go.”
Do you anticipate working with your brother during the Nationwide race? “We worked really well together in Daytona in the Nationwide Series. Kurt (Busch) started further up front, so it took us a little while in the race to get hooked up. But, once we did, we kept ourselves in the top-five, six, seven, eight much of the rest of the afternoon. There coming off turn two, we were leading the race, I was pushing Kurt and we blocked the run from behind us that was coming up our outside and we thought, ‘Wow, that was easy, now it’s going to be down between us coming back to the checkered flag.’ Those guys somehow got another run on us and got to our outside getting into turn three and then separated us and low and behold the wreck was on from there. The Nationwide cars are a little different, you can push two, two-and-a-half laps in Nationwide, but Cup cars you can’t push at all it doesn’t seem.”
Does the weather and temperature affect when you would start the two-car tandem? “With the temperatures being as hot as they are, the ambient track temp being way up from what it was in Daytona, it’s just a lot harder to keep your car cool enough and not let it get heat soaked that you have an amount of time that you can push. You’re just kind of limited on what you can do based off water temp.”
What does it mean to be a part of the All-Star race in this sport? “It matters, especially with who you crumple it up with sometimes. For us, being an all-star and being in the All-Star race is one of the most fun things we get to do a year. I’d say the Budweiser Shootout being another one of those or the All-Star race are certainly two fun races that we get a chance to go after just a win and bring home the checkered or the wrecker. It’s an exciting night and there’s a lot of energy there. Charlotte does a great job, I think it’s an awesome venue for that race. It gives you the opportunity to run whether it’s a 40 lap segment, 25 lap segment, 10 lap segment — it gives you the opportunity to run that many qualifying laps in a row. That’s all you’re doing — you’re giving it all you’ve got every single lap. You’re definitely up on top of the wheel and your guys do the best they can to give you a good car and to make it as light weight as possible and throw away the air conditioning unit and keep all the front fans away from you, no radiator fan. All that stuff, just try to lighten that baby up and make it fast.”
Is it possible to bump-draft? “The Cup cars, when you’re out there and running in the pack, you can get up and close in on somebody — you get within a quarter length of touching their bumper and then it kind of pushes them away. When we know we’re going to tandem race, that front car is dragging the brake pedal and dragging back to you. It’s not that it’s hard to hook-up, it’s just it’s a different form. You can get to somebody’s rear bumper and not want to be there because you have four cars lined up behind you pushing you. You can want to get to somebody’s rear bumper and not be able to get there because you don’t have anybody behind you pushing you. The closer you get, you start pushing them away. That’s kind of the effect that you’re under. Some guys know when like, hey, you want to get to that rear bumper in front of you. He doesn’t know that you to get there, he doesn’t know what your water temp is. So, he’s not going to backup to you because you don’t have in-car communications with one another and all that stuff, too. That’s all a challenge and that’s why it’s all so difficult to do anymore. It’s all kind of changed.”
KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 M&M’s Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing (continued) Are drivers being more cautious during races? “I would doubt it seriously. There’s not a guy running out there that’s running in 10th that doesn’t wish he was leading the race trying to win the thing. It’s where you are sometimes. Sometimes it’s a track position game and just not having the best of track position and sometimes you don’t have the best car and you’re trying to fight off guys that are around you or you can’t get close to the guy in front of you to pass him. The lack of cautions is just due to — you’ve got 43 of the best NASCAR stock car drivers in the world that are racing every single weekend. I think the driver talent today is a lot higher than maybe what it was in years past sometimes. Sure, you had the greats at one point on the race track, but there was probably five, eight, 10 of them at a time where now you’ve got — there’s legitimately 22 to 25 drivers that can win every week and there’s probably 30 teams that can win every week. It’s just all relative to how it all goes together — who works best with their crew chief, who gets the best handling car that day. Sometimes who lucks out and what they get through tech or what have you. It’s just all a matter of doing the best you can with what you’ve got. Why there’s limited amount of caution flags — doesn’t mean it’s because we’re all scared to wreck one another. It’s because we’re all pretty good at what we do and know how to race without wrecking one another.”
Where does Richmond weekend rank among your race wins? “I don’t understand where it’s all coming from where I really needed a win. We were nine races into the year — we got wrecked at Bristol so we didn’t win at Bristol — sorry. By my standards, sure, it was a long time without winning a race. I would admit that. For me, where does that weekend rank? It’s so hard to count them or to rank them or anything like that. Bristol was a phenomenal weekend that I had two years ago when I won the triple there. Winning my first Nationwide race ever at Richmond or winning my first Cup race at California — there’s been a lot of milestones and accomplishments are achievements that I’ve been able to have in NASCAR racing. To rank them is especially tough, but that’s certainly a very memorable one, a very special one. One that I would like to never forget.”
What was your plan in practice today? “Different for everybody, but for us it was just to kind of go out there and definitely get in the first pack because the first pack is always the biggest so you have to be ready when practice first starts. Just kind of feel out your car and see what it’s doing. Is it into the race track? Is it on top of the race track? Are you sliding around too much? We knew the heat this weekend was going to be something we were going to have to look for with engine temperature as well as just tire temperatures and kind of sliding around. Track surface is another year older so all that stuff. You just figure out how your car’s driving and work on it from there. We had some things that we wanted to continue to try to feel out and get better with so we ran some of the second session where other guys felt like they were good in the first one and just quit. You definitely don’t want to take a chance or wrecking your car or you don’t want to be put in a weird spot out there and have somebody get together in front of you and you drive into it and crash a race car. Glad that practice was good for everybody that it didn’t seem like, from my knowledge that anybody wrecked so that’s cool.”
Are you worried about your cooling system working this weekend? “It was going in and out at Kansas a little bit and we tried something last week and it didn’t work at all, period. It’s a good thing it was a cool night in Richmond, so that was really nice. Now you come here and you definitely don’t want to have any issues here at Talladega. Although you’re not so strained physically, you are mentally. You definitely want to stay refreshed as best you can throughout a race in 150 degree cockpit temperatures. You definitely want it working and so far today it was good.”
Should NASCAR get rid of the wave around rule? “Hell no, hell no. We had that (before the wave around rule) and it was stupid because we were watching lap down cars take the green flag as the leader and the leaders actually in the back of the pack — it was the most confusing thing we’ve ever seen.”
Weren’t the restarts confusing last week? “Hell no, I understood everything perfectly. All you have to do is pay attention in the driver’s meeting. They have the one long drivers meeting at the beginning of the year that tells you everything and how it’s all laid out about this car goes in front of that car and when you’re two laps down and when you’re one lap down — all that stuff. If you want to replay it, I’m sure the NASCAR hauler will give you a video of it so you can understand it yourself. Maybe some other drivers need it a couple more times a year to understand it all. I bet they’ll replay it tomorrow. That would be funny.”
