TOYOTA NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS)
Kyle Busch – Notes & Quotes
Dover International Speedway – October 2, 2015
Joe Gibbs Racing driver Kyle Busch was made available to the media at Dover International Speedway:
KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 Interstate Batteries Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
How has the pressure of your season prepared you for this weekend?
“I think that’s just sort of the name of what our season has been – just win and make enough points in order to get ourselves to transfer through or to transfer into the Chase and actually become Chase eligible. It’s not different than what we have to do right now essentially. We just have to make sure that we do what we’ve always done here in Dover and that’s to run strong, run up front and collect a good finish here. Hopefully the points will take care of themselves.”
What was going through your mind when you blew the tire at New Hampshire Motor Speedway last weekend?
“Those thoughts probably didn’t actually happen until the race was over. It’s September, October, November right? That’s typically the time of the season in which something seems to happen to myself. Not sure why, but it is what it is. This is the time of year that you have to have everything kind of go your way and everything go right and to blow a right front tire 23 laps into a run, that just doesn’t make any sense. That has absolutely nothing to do with over-camber or over-using the brakes or melting a bead or anything like that. You can’t blow one that fast, but we can or I can. It was a bummer deal, but it puts us in a position now where we have to fight through this round and it’s no different than any other year. You’ve always got to fight through the Chase and there’s been no give up in this 18 all year long and there’s none right now. We’re just going to power on through and do what we need to do this weekend to get to the next round.”
How do you approach each weekend knowing that bizarre things can happen?
“You just go into each weekend knowing that you have to do your job and that as long as you do your job, hopefully everything aligns right and you move on. In years past, I don’t know that it’s necessarily been a particular track or a particular moment that’s knocked us out of the Chase before. It doesn’t happen the same spot every single year. It happens all over the place. It was Martinsville one year, it was Kansas one year, it was Charlotte another year, it was Talladega last year and right now it seems to be Loudon (N.H.) this year. It never ends. It’s just a matter of trying to get through those bad moments and get on to the next week.”
Do you use the struggles from earlier this season as motivation to get through this round of the Chase?
“I think the biggest thing is that you can look back on that a little bit, but this time of year is different. This time of year is where everybody starts to come out and show exactly what they’re worth and what they are and how much they want to win this championship. The beginning part of the year, we were racing a completely different group of guys than what we’re racing right now. We were racing David Gilliland and Cole Whitt and (Justin) Allgaier, whoever all was around that 30th place and now we’re racing the top-10, 12, 16 best drivers in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. It’s a completely different realm of things. We’ve got to come into Dover (International Speedway) this weekend and concentrate on beating Paul Menard, Dale (Earnhardt) Jr. and Jamie McMurray – those are some guys that have run really well this year and have been stout this year and are competitive. That’s why it’s not necessarily just going to be an easy slide on through for us at Dover, but we hope that we run well here like we have in the past and things will take care of themselves.”
How do you feel coming into this race if there is no practice before the race?
“I think for my guys, we’ve been really, really good this year of unloading and having some strong cars and some good speed right off the truck. I’d actually look forward to no practice time here. I think that would be really good for the 18 team. Whether that happens or not, who knows? Too early to tell right now. Either way, whether we practice or not, we’ll be ready, we’ll be prepared and we won’t start as far forward as we have here in years past. Typically we’re a top-five qualifier, so I think we’ll have to start wherever we are in points, which is 14th, 15th, whatever it is. We’ll make due.”
Should NASCAR work with the team owners to create more value in the teams?
“I don’t know exactly all the specifics of what’s going on with the owners meeting and all that stuff, so I can’t comment to what all is going to happen or what’s coming down the pipeline. All I know is it is one of the tougher spots to be in as an owner, especially in the Truck Series I feel to continue to have a successful operation, to keep people employed and to keep people there. You don’t have the money to spend as well as you do in Cup or XFINITY to keep good people in your place. I feel like Joe Gibbs Racing is one of the best teams in the business. I’m happy to be where I’m at and I’m glad this stuff seems to be going down in a better place for NASCAR and for Joe Gibbs (team owner) because with J.D.’s (Gibbs, team president) illness that’s come down, this is all the Gibbs family has – their race team is what they strive on and what they live for. I’m thankful that they’re a part of NASCAR and doing what they do and keeping the 500 plus strong – all of us – employed at JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing).”
Does the team value discussion make you optimistic Kyle Busch Motorsports will have more value in the future?
“Yeah, no doubt. I definitely feel that to have some sort of value is certainly a heck of a lot better to be able to sell something when you’re all said in done rather than selling beat up tractors and trailers. Your equipment essentially is outdated every four months, so your cars are junk, you’ve got toolboxes and stuff, equipment around the shop – stuff like that – property within the building you have. Certainly to have some sort of stake – I’ve heard the word ‘Medallion’ used – I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but to have some sort of higher stake that you can sell or to have to sell obviously makes it a little bit more worth being an owner and being involved in our sport for sure.”
How does the change in the restart zone help or create more issues?
“I think it helps things with the advantage maybe going back slightly towards the leader again. Obviously, when you’re the leader you want to have that advantage. You’re the one that is the leader. You’re the one that’s in that position so you should have the advantage. With the restart zones and rules the way that they were, the leader was at the biggest disadvantage. Everybody would lay back a little bit and then they’d start their momentum and roll up on the leader. Once they got closer to the zone, they would start to time their momentum and they would want to have a little more roll going than the leader would and in doing that, guys would start going early and essentially pin the leader in a negative spot. I think now having a wider zone and NASCAR policing, if they police the roll up, which they did on Brad (Keselowski) last week, they failed the week before, but you can’t go back and fix those things so hopefully they can continue to fix things going forward. Besides the restart zone being opened up which I think was a good thing, I think the only other thing to do is just make a rule that says the second-place car cannot beat the leader to the single red mark. That seems to be where most of the problems start to come up is when that second-place guy starts to roll on the leader a little bit and the leader wants to wait for – like in my instance with (Jeff) Gordon at Chicago, when he started rolling up on me I’m like, ‘Okay fine, I’m going to wait until you have to check up and I’ll go at the single red mark.’ Well when Gordon’s nose was ahead of my nose and he got to the single red mark, he just went because he knew he needed to go. That’s the second-place guy starting the restart. You can’t have that, so I think you have to make a rule where that second-place guy has to stay behind the leader through the single red mark.”
How important is it to make restart fair across the board for the field?
“I don’t think it should ever be exactly equal for everybody. I think the restarts should always have more advantage towards – trended towards the leader. I think if you’re the leader, you’re the leader for a reason. This business isn’t easy, you know? Being the leader, you should have a little bit of an advantage over the rest of the guys and I think the biggest thing is just NASCAR making sure that they watch the roll – the people rolling up on other people – and again I feel as though the second place guy can’t beat the leader to the first mark, the end of the restart zone. It doesn’t matter about the start-finish line – who cares about that? It’s the restart zone I feel like the leader should always be ahead.”
