TOYOTA NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS)
Kyle Busch – Notes & Quotes
New Hampshire Motor Speedway – July 15, 2016
Joe Gibbs Racing driver Kyle Busch was made available to the media at New Hampshire Motor Speedway:
KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 Interstate Batteries Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
What is it about New Hampshire Motor Speedway that produces exciting finishes here for you?
“This race track for us has been pretty good over the years, especially the last few years, and finally figured out our short track program and getting that going at Joe Gibbs Racing. Denny (Hamlin) has always been good here. Certainly used a lot of his notes and talked to him a lot about how it helps myself here and it’s worked. We’ve qualified upfront, we’ve led some laps but we’ve yet to found the speed on long runs. That seems to be where we lack a little bit still to today. We certainly looked to come out here this weekend and have a good strong run and see if we can’t get ourselves in victory lane. Wins are what matters most and we were able to do that here in this race as you mentioned last year and we’d like to be able to do it again.”
What are your thoughts on Dale Earnhardt Jr. being out of the race car with concussion symptoms and have you ever faced something like that in your career?
“It is certainly not a good thing that Dale (Earnhardt Jr.) is not able to race and certainly I’ve sent my regards, but it’s a tough subject. It’s about how you’re feeling and you’re the only one that knows how you’re feeling. You can’t show these types of injuries as well as you can a broken bone or something to that respect. It’s all about Dale and I commend him for taking action and feeling what he was feeling and being able to go to the doctors and explaining that and for them to say he needed to sit out a week or two or however many it may be what’s best for him. And, obviously that is what’s best for him is his health. It’s a tough situation to be in as a race car driver. I’ve never been in that situation where I have felt something within my head. I’ve got a lot of screws loose, but none that were that bad that I felt like I needed to go get looked at. And, so, thankfully I haven’t had that and hopefully I don’t have to deal with that.”
Are concussions and concussion protocol discussed during the Driver Counsel meetings and are you comfortable with NASCAR’s procedures?
“That hasn’t necessarily been a hot topic of conversation in any of our meetings. For us to look at what NASCAR has in place for us. We go through the impact testing. We do that as a baseline and then if we do have any injuries in which they suspect or they think that we need to go back through the baseline test again for a second test in order to make sure that we kind of match up they’ll ask us to do that. I’ve never had to go through any of that so I can’t speak to what exactly the threshold is. If you get an A+ on your baseline and you get a D on your next one, does that mean that you’re out of the car? There’s never been that sort of stance or that clarity from NASCAR or the doctors on what they think is allowed to get back in the race car and what isn’t. So, that is something that I’m still unknown of for today. I guess I can’t speak much further to any of that.”
What do you like about the way your car has been running consistently?
“We’ve had some really good speed this year. That’s been certainly a good thing to have. Sometimes you go to these race tracks and you’re confused as to why you’re not very fast and you struggle along and you don’t really fare very well in practice or the race, but for us on the JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing) side – especially speaking on the 18 car – we have had decent speed in practices. Maybe sometimes not at the top of the sheet but we’re in the top half of the sheet. And, then we get to the race and we can always count on in the races being able to race our ways up towards the front. So, that’s been a huge confidence booster for us as a team, for me as a driver, for Adam (Stevens) as a crew chief – that we know when we get to a race we’ll have the opportunity to make ourselves better and have good races. I think our worst finish this year is 12th I guess a couple weeks ago we had a fuel mileage race at Kentucky that limited our progress. We were running in the top-five and should have probably finishes fourth or fifth and that would’ve probably been about our worst finish without something happening during the race, you know, a flat tire or as I mentioned the fuel mileage coming into play towards the end of the race. We’ve had good speed so that’s been a positive for us.”
Do fans really understand the physical beating that drivers take in the race cars in a given race weekend?
“I don’t think – I think it’s hard for people to understand what exactly we feel throughout an event. I’ve heard a lot of people over the years that have gone and done the Richard Petty Driving Experience or the riding experience and they’ve certainly got a taste of what we do on a weekly basis and their quotes to me are, ‘Man, we’ve got a heck of a lot more respect for you. That was a lot more than we anticipated or expected that we’d feel.’ So, you always get that and I always encourage people to go get a chance to get in a race car to kind of feel and see what we do. To do it for four, four and a half hours on every single weekend it does take a toll on your body. I can say that now because when I was 18, 19 or 20 years old or younger I really didn’t feel it. I could go through a whole season and I really didn’t feel it a whole lot. Well, now I’m 31 and I feel it a heck of a lot more. Certainly, I remember it late last year getting towards the end of the year I actually still felt pretty good – I only ran half of the year. This year now I’ve run from the beginning of the year I’m getting to about the halfway point and I’m feeling the same way I did at Homestead and we still have another half of the year to go. So, certainly you’ve got to modulate your body and take care of your body the best you can. I feel like there’s a lot of things you can do off the track that can help that and I try to do all of that stuff as much as I can.”
Is it still important to a driver that before you leave NASCAR you win a Daytona 500, Southern 500 and Brickyard 400?
“It is. It certainly was for us last year. I think that for myself and the 18 team being about to win there (Indianapolis Motor Speedway) with Skittles last year was pretty awesome because it was our first Brickyard 400 win for me, for Adam (Stevens) being a crew chief although he’s won there as an engineer a couple of times. It was really special as a whole team and they treat it very special there as well too with the whole ceremony post-race and everything that goes on there with taking the ride around the track and the owner being with you and JD (Gibbs) was there last year. That was pretty cool. It is a big deal. I feel like it is for us. For our team we circle it on the calendar every year – that’s one we want to win. We always circle the Daytona 500, the Coke 600, the All-Star race and the Brickyard 400 and the Southern 500 and Homestead. There’s probably a couple more in there that you want to win such as any one race within each round of the Chase. You want to win any of those to get yourselves locked in and moving on to the next round just to solidify your chances for being able to win a championship. But, it’s obviously a big race and I guess it still pays pretty decent so you might as well win it.”
Does being the reigning Sprint Cup Series champion give you a greater appreciation for your job?
“Yeah, no doubt. Certainly there was a lot of questions in my head throughout the beginning part of the season as to whether or not this is something that I need to continue doing or that I want to continue doing and there was no doubt in my mind that all of the answers were always yes, to get back in that race car. So, I worked hard to do that and get back in and went through the finish of the season, won the championship and it was just such a great accomplishment for myself as well as my family and my team that it definitely meant so much more probably going through the things that I did last year than if it were just a continuation of the years that have gone by to be able to win the championship. We took a greater appreciation from all of that and certainly used that as fuel going forward.”
Have you had a chance to analyze the 78 team penalty on pit road last week at Kentucky Speedway?
“I have not really seen the video of it. I watched it live and while I watched I was like, ‘Alright, if you don’t get busted for that then that’s interesting.’ I certainly have seen those moves being made before on pit road with other cars. I specifically remember it was Jimmie Johnson at Atlanta – maybe it was earlier this year or last year – that made a couple passes to the left side before getting into his box and slowing down and nothing was ever called. That’s why I think more and more guys have gone into that and have been trying to do that. We play the timing lines way too much and so that was just something that was out there for him (Martin Truex Jr.) to play with and try and he did and they busted him for it. I do agree with you a little bit in how sometimes selective a little bit on who they punish but I do feel like when we have asked NASCAR to be more forceful and to make more calls, especially like the restart things that have kind of gone on the last little bit, I do feel as if they have gone on to make more restart calls on people. They do review the restarts it seems a heck of a lot more than they used to and make sure that everybody was clean and that things were done properly. And, it has seemed to have cleaned up restarts. Hopefully with them making some calls on pit road it will clean up pit road a little bit.”
What does the rule state?
“The rule states no passing to the left so when you’re front bumper precedes the front bumper of the car that you’re next to then that’s called passing even though you’re passing him for a split second before you slow back down to get into your box, to me that’s passing. Go back to Michigan, maybe it was 2011 or 2012 or something like that, I was actually on the flip side of that. I was to the right side of Tony Stewart and Tony Stewart was not running at pit road speed and I could actually run a faster pit road speed because I felt like my threshold was higher than what Tony’s was and I passed him on the right side before he pulled off to turn into his pit box and they posted me for passing to the right which is legal. So, you know, what exactly the pit road rules are I guess is we may need to have a little bit of a clarification exactly on what all is going down. I’ve just not been that aggressive on pit road ever since I got called for the Tony call about left or right and I’ve not been busted on any of those since.”
How can a win at New Hampshire Motor Speedway push you towards winning a championship?
“This was a good race for us last year. Winning here was certainly a bit of momentum that we had on our side. We were running third and we had a caution kind of go our way and got us the track position that we needed and we were able to win from there. There are things that have to work out and go in your favor in order to win some of these races sometimes and we had some of that here. This is a tough track to pass and when you can have a good car here and you can pass your competition and you can beat them then it gives you a bit of confidence in your cars and in yourself that you’re able to go out there and beat those guys each and every week. So, it does give you that extra boost to go on to the next week like we had last year when we went to Indy and we won Indy as well too – that was our three in a row from Kentucky, Loudon and Indy that we won. That was awesome. That was just something really, really special that actually gave me some confidence going to Indy. I was like, ‘Man, you know how cool it’s going to be to win three in a row? But you know how cool it’s going to be to win the Brickyard 400?’ That was certainly some thoughts that we had going into that week and we just set our mind to it and we were able to capitalize and that was good.”
How do you prepare for hot temperatures going into a race weekend?
“For it being as hot as it is here this weekend I don’t know if I ever remember it being this hot here, so it’s going to be a warm one and good thing I decided I wanted to run two here this weekend. We’ll be in the XFINITY race and Sprint Cup race. We’ll do the best we can with what we got and I’ll drink plenty of fluids and make sure that we’re ready to go and well rested for the whole day.”
Do you see any similarities between Erik Jones and yourself when you were his age?
“I do. I think Erik (Jones) is really good, he’s really focused, he tries very hard and he’s easy to disappoint. There are times that he gives everything that he’s got, he tries and he’s disappointed in the results of that effort. I feel like last week probably at Kentucky he was pretty disappointed in what happened there. People said it about me and I’ll say it about him, he’s got plenty of opportunities. He’s got a bright future that he’s going to score plenty of wins. But, you always hate it when you give those easy ones away. That’s probably the worst trait that he and I both have. We’re fast, we’re competitive and we want to win each and every week so that’s the good things about us.”
What are your thoughts on Jeff Gordon possibly returning to sub for Dale Earnhardt Jr. next week at Indy?
“Yeah, I think that’s pretty cool. That’s certainly – Jeff (Gordon) always said when he was stepping to the side that he was not retiring, so I think that’s pretty neat that there’s an opportunity there for him to be able to come back and race probably in one of his favorite races. And, given that he’s sort of a hometown boy when he goes to Indiana that he gets to run the Brickyard 400 again. If that all comes to fruition then I do feel as though Jeff would be able to jump right back in. I don’t think that he would have to go through any sort of protocol to be back behind the wheel. I think that he would be able to handle it just fine. He’s been around the sport all this year and the beginning part of the season and he has seen the races and has commentated on the races and he hasn’t missed much so I’m sure he’d be ready to go right outside the box.”
Is there anything you can take out of the July race at New Hampshire that you can use for the Chase race?
“Yeah, definitely. You’re base setup you run here will be pretty similar to what you’ll run here in the fall. There’s definitely some things that you’ll change. This weekend you may run softer rear springs because it’s hotter outside the rear tires have a tendency to burn off easier when it’s hot out versus when we come back here in the fall it may be cooler and we may just put spring right to the back of the car and make the car turn a little bit better. Those sorts of things that you look at. But, definitely this is a race that you will focus a little bit more effort on and make sure that you’re a little cleaner in your changes during practice and you focus on what you feel like you need to focus on this time around that you learned from last year and Adam (Stevens, crew chief) and I have that experience from last year that will help us this year to making sure that we can really prepare ourselves for the next race here.”
