Toyota Daytona 500 Driver Quotes
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS)
Daytona Media Day – February 22, 2017
Toyota driver Kyle Busch was made available to the media at NASCAR Daytona Media Day:
Kyle Busch, No. 18 M&M’s Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
What do you think about the new format?
“I think it’s going to be good because I think it just gives you a better opportunity to score more points and to score those points that will obviously transfer with you through the different rounds of the Chase all the way to Homestead. It makes it a little bit better for the bad days you have in the Chase to then have some sort of cushion kind of built up for the success you’ve had throughout the year.”
What are you hearing from fans?
“So far so good. I haven’t had very much negative. I feel like the fans are going to be more so to their particular driver. Let’s say Jimmie Johnson scores the most segment points and race wins and everything else, the Jimmie Johnson fans are going to love it, and the rest of us are going to hate it. I think it’s just a matter of knowing what the rules are, being able to go out there and to achieve all of that throughout the season, and to do the best you can for what your team is, what your plans are through the year.”
How do you feel about the future of the sport?
“I think we’re trying each and every year to do the right things. Obviously we’re making changes in order to show more interest. A lot of people kind of lost interest in the points format being you win and you’re in. You don’t have to watch your favorite driver because it doesn’t matter until you get back to Chase time and everything else. Different reasons for different things. Overall I feel like we’re trying to keep the excitement for every single race throughout the race all year long. That’s a lot of attention span to try to hold onto. Not a lot of sports are being successful at it, I feel like, including ours. Yet we are trying to make probably more changes than many of the other sports are in order to keep up with the demand of what the people want to see today.”
Do you feel the younger demographic is hard to get in?
“Yeah, no, I agree too. I feel like there are certainly a lot more people that are taking things in in different aspects with digital and everything else. It’s just different this day and age than what it used to be. What used to work for NASCAR racing in the ’70s, ’80s, even ’90s isn’t the same today. Obviously some changes need to happen. Whether or not those changes will be good is for us to learn about and see. We certainly wouldn’t be making them if we didn’t think it was going to help.”
Does the popularity of NASCAR depend on just a few key drivers?
“It shouldn’t be. That’s for sure. A lot of people said when Jeff Gordon retired, it declined. When Junior wasn’t there, it declined. It shouldn’t be dependent on just on those drivers. It should be dependent on the personalities of the drivers we have each and every weekend no matter who’s out there. Whether I’m gone and Daniel is there, or whether Matt Kenseth is gone and a John Hunter Nemechek is there. It doesn’t matter. You still want to have the drivers that are out there being well‑represented for who they are.”
What do you think about younger fans?
“Well, fortunately I drive the M&M cars, and I’ve seen a lot of younger fans being at the racetracks. Many of them may be younger than the fans that they’re looking at are. I’ve seen six, seven, eight, all the way to 14 years being huge M&M and Kyle Busch fans. They enjoy coming out and seeing what we’ve got going on. Do they kind of die off or not come to the races as much once they get past 16, 17 because it’s not cool? I don’t know. Certainly I would think when you’re a fan and you come once and you’re hooked, you keep coming again and again.”
What are your chances of getting your first Daytona 500 victory?
“I don’t feel any worse about it. The new 2018 Camry is a positive. It’s certainly a fast racecar. We’ve got good stuff with Joe Gibbs Racing and Toyota. Everyone doing a really good job on that front. It’s our turn being in the No. 18 M&M Toyota this year, being able to score that Daytona 500 victory, that’s what it’s all about.”
Could you tell a difference with this Camry? Change in the nose?
“It’s a little bit different. It’s not too much different. I think there’s enough changes that we have, as well, too, with the body, the engine, the rules and everything else that we’ve kind of got going on. You can’t necessarily particularly put it on the body and the shape and everything that’s the 2018 Camry. Certainly it’s fun to see us all run up front and be in a row like we were here last year and be successful at doing the same stuff.”
How has the process been at JGR since Carl Edwards left?
“Yeah, so far it’s good. Daniel (Suárez) is high on energy, wants to do well, really pushes hard, does a good job of asking a lot of questions. No question is a dumb question, we tell him. That might open him up to asking more. But he’s able to do a good job and put to good use the answers that we give him onto the racetrack. That’s what makes racecar drivers good, is that they have the tenacity or the work ethic to be able to take what you tell them and be able to put it to good use on the racetrack. Talking about it’s one thing, but being able to perform it is another.”
Who decides when your team should work together?
“I think the marching orders, if you will, stem from all of us. We all talk in our team meetings each and every week what our plans are, our plan of attack, how we want to be able to achieve success, whether it’s together, whether it’s separately. There are some tracks we go to, it’s like, Hey, we’re every man for himself. Every car is entirely different, set up entirely different. So we’ll migrate that way if somebody seems to be better than the rest of the group. Here at Daytona, obviously Joe is a big proponent of all of us making sure we have a plan and we talk it over, everybody knows and understands what our objectives are. Things may vary from that later on down the road. Typically it stays pretty much to the plan.”
Did Denny follow the plan on the last lap of last year’s race?
“I mean, not necessarily. My interpretation of the plan was that whoever was in front at the time, we make sure we push them and they win. But this year it’s sort of morphed into, Hey, you have to make sure you do what’s right for your team in any particular moment to make sure you can score the victory for yourself. It’s the same thing, get everybody up there, have all five or six of us now together in one group and leading the field. When it comes down to five, four, three, two, one to go, whatever it’s going to be, somebody make their move in order to go for the win for their team.”
How important is fuel mileage?
“I ran out of gas going for my first Pocono victory a couple years ago. Yeah, it does happen. There’s certainly times in which you’re told to save fuel, you try to save enough fuel and you don’t. That just kind of proves I must not be good enough at saving fuel. Two of the best in the sport, one of them not here anymore, Carl and Brad, are probably the two best at being able to do that.”
Have you ever run out of gas just driving around?
“Once, yes. I was going south on 77 in Charlotte, my parents’ old 1989 Suburban. Thought I could make it to the next exit that had a gas station on it. I was coming home from Martinsville, I think. Ran out of gas.”
Something everybody can relate to.
“No doubt, yeah.”
What’s the right chemistry in the draft, like with the Penske team?
“I think their two‑car speed is greater than our four‑car speed. When they’re able to get their two cars together, they obviously can do a really good job. I mean, us four together, we’re up front leading the race. They came up through there, got together nose to tail, the 2 and 22 pushing them. They started pulling us apart, able to get up front, up towards the lead. Certainly with that fact right there, it shows that they’re pretty good.”
Is there a way you can defend that, having seen it happen once, something different you guys can do?
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen it on film yet. I just know it because of what I remember. But to go back and look at it and study it and see if there’s a way to defend it, I’m not exactly sure yet. Maybe. But also, I mean, the track’s 38 feet wide, whatever the heck wide it is. Our cars are only seven‑and‑a‑half feet wide. There is a lot of other space or real estate they have to use. I don’t think you’re always going to be able to hold them back.”
With points on the line in the Duels, how does it change your mind?
“I don’t think it matters points for the Duels for the drivers that know they’re going to be Chase eligible. I say that because if you win a race you’re in. You win and you’re in, that still applies. Those points, those 10 to 1 points you get for a top‑10 finish doesn’t mean anything if that’s not you. You’re not getting a bonus point for winning the Duel. If you were, I think that would be more useful to all of us. Really it’s about the starting position for the Daytona 500. When you come down to a guy like Almirola, a Roush car, one of the guys that are always on the bubble of making the Chase, like Allmendinger, those points then are important to those guys because they need every point they can get throughout the whole season. For guys like us Gibbs cars, or Hendrick cars, Penske cars, it don’t matter.”
Does every point matter?
“But 10 points in the grand scheme of that amount of points can or can’t break you, you’re right. One point is always a big deal. In reality, not really.”
You’re not going to look at that?
“Aren’t you set by how many wins you have? Like if you have four wins, you’re going to be the top seed, right, not by how many points you have?”
How much do you worry about points? Do you feel like if you do your job, you’re going to win a race?
“I feel like what we worry about is we worry about segment points and we worry about race points. The one point for a segment win and the five points you get for the race wins, those are the points you’re more worried about. Those points right there carry you all the way through the Chase.”
Going back to fuel mileage races, are the stage races going to eliminate that?
“I think you can still see fuel mileage races. Let’s say, for instance, fuel window’s 40 laps at Michigan, and the last segment of that race is going to be 80 or 60 laps long, how do you divide it up? What do you do as a strategy? Do you come in at lap 20, then try to push it all the way to the end on fuel mileage? Is there another caution in there that then screws you and throws that all out the window? It’s just dependent on situations and what happens. Certainly week by week it’s going to change. It’s going to be different per track, I feel.”
Do you pay more attention to certain tracks because of how you know you may, or may not run at them?
“Certainly, you know. We looked at last year, we focused a lot on Martinsville. We also looked a lot at Kansas. We knocked those two off the list. I’ve done the same amount of work and study for Pocono and Charlotte last year, and I wasn’t able to check those off. It does come down to circumstance about how you can win some of these races and put yourselves in the right positions at the right time to do all of that. But, too, winning the Daytona 500, you can only do so much. A lot of it’s car, a lot of it’s luck, a lot of it’s skill. It’s all embedded in there. One of the biggest factors I’d say is just it being your day and having the luck on your side.”
Is that part of the coolness of it or is that a frustration?
“No, it’s frustrating because you can’t work harder than the next guy in order to be able to go out there and outperform him. When you come to Daytona or Talladega, 40 guys legitimately have a shot to win the race. Anything can happen. That’s what makes this race so hard to win, is that it’s not all the time that Brad Keselowski, who has been the best plate racer probably the last two or three years arguably, has not won the Daytona 500 because it’s just circumstantial.”
It’s probably great for 30 guys and awful and frustrating for 10?
“Yeah, exactly. The 10 that you know can win each and every week, it’s frustrating, because the other 30 have a shot. Yeah, perfect.”
How has being a champion changed your life?
“Yeah, I think it has. Certainly when you’re able to go into contract negotiations and things like that. Hey, I got a championship since last time we did this, I should be rewarded for what I was able to accomplish within our term. Being within the garage area, obviously having some of the success we’ve had, winning a championship, yeah, you’re treated a little bit differently. The officials kind of treat you a little bit differently. But it also depends on how you treat the officials, as well (laughter). Then, too, your sponsors and things like that, obviously that’s what they want each and every year. They want to be known as the best sponsor of that year. They want to have that trophy as well, too. I think there’s some cool accolades that come along with it, for sure. A lot better than finishing second.”
Do you feel different? Do you have a different feel coming to the racetrack now?
“Yes and no. I guess I probably do more so in the Truck and XFINITY Series than I do in the Sprint Cup Series. Once you get to the Sprint Cup Series, everybody is on a level playing field. Even though Jimmie is seven‑time, you still look at him as a guy you got to beat each and every week. I don’t feel he’s any better than I am. But when you’re on the other levels, obviously those guys, they look at you as a Sprint Cup champion, either try to mimic you, do what you do, beat you, or they look up to you and what your accomplishments have been.”
