DENVER, Colo. (July 31, 2013). It’s crunch time and Kurt Busch is excited the next Sprint Cup Series stop is at Pocono Raceway as the Furniture Row pilot continues his quest to become the first driver with a single-car team to make NASCAR’s Chase, the 12-driver, 10-race playoffs.
With six races remaining before the start of the Chase, Busch finds himself in 14th place, 13 points shy of 10th, the final Chase position before the two-wildcard entries.
“It’s just not us battling to get into the top-10 in points, there are a number of teams also close to making the Chase which makes it more difficult for everyone,” noted Busch, who captured the 2004 NASCAR championship in the first season of the Chase format. “It’s going to come down to who makes the fewest mistakes and who has the least amount of bad luck in the next six races.”
Pocono’s 2.5-mile triangular track has been good to Busch over the years. He has claimed two wins at Pocono along with nine top-fives, 13 top-10s and 449 laps led. At the Pocono June race he posted a seventh-place finish.
“Pocono is fun, you just get up on the wheel there because all three corners are different and they change throughout the race,” said Busch. “I’ve had success at Pocono in the past and I think we did really well there the last time (early June). Qualifying got rained out and we started 20th and then raced straight up to seventh immediately. Then we hit a brick wall and were stuck in seventh all race long and even finished in seventh.”
To achieve a better result than seventh in Sunday’s GoBowling.com 400, Busch feels his Furniture Row Chevrolet SS needs to find better traction in Turn 3, also known as the tunnel turn.
“To break through we have to be a little better in turn three – turn three was loose in and tight off the last time we were there,” explained Busch. “Our Furniture Row Chevrolet wasn’t gripping the racetrack the right way in turn three. We know what we did wrong and now it’s a matter of filtering what would be the best approach for the next time there. We need a strong run this weekend after a disappointing 14th place finish in Indianapolis.”
Busch’s week prior to arriving in Long Pond, Pa. on Thursday has been busy from both a professional and personal level. Following Sunday’s race in Indianapolis, Busch headed to Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International for a two-day test session. He was then scheduled on Wednesday to be in Chicago to visit the Chicago Bears training camp and later in the day catch a Chicago Cubs game at Wrigley Field.
