KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 NOS Rowdy Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 1st
How were you able to overcome a few early mistakes to get the victory today?
“You’ve just got to get through it, but unfortunately I screwed up early and I got us behind but the guys gave me such an awesome race car that we could make it back up and we were able to do that today. So, this NOS Energy Drink Rowdy flavor Camry was awesome today. This Toyota Camry drove really good. The guys had awesome brakes on the car. The tires were pretty good too. I thought I flat spotted them a couple of times, but they held through throughout the run so that was cool. And, then we just want to thank the fans. Of course they’re great and they support the racing up here. Fans on TV, thanks for watching of course. DVX Sunglasses, Cessna, XFINITY, we appreciate them and giving us the stream app. It’s a lot of fun to watch these races from too when you’re out and about.”
Do you feel like it’s a possibility to sweep the weekend with a win in the Cup Series tomorrow?
“It certainly is. Our cars have been really fast this weekend. I don’t know if I’m just in the groove or what, but it feels pretty good. The cars have really been working for me here and it just feels so good to finally win an XFINITY race here. We’ve been so close so many times. One of my favorite runs here was in a Zippo car and being it the Zippo race today that’s kind of ironic – I guess they sponsor it every year — but being with Eddie D’Hondt and the Zippo car I remember we were really, really fast and wish we would’ve got that one. We got it done here today. This group of guys is awesome and they did everything there for me today. Pit road was pretty good for us. We stayed out long on that one run and we were able to cycle back up to the lead. It worked two weeks in a row that way, I don’t know how much longer we can do that before they figure it out but it’s been working for us so we’ll take it.”
How do you feel about earning the win and the 139th series wins for Joe Gibbs Racing, which sets a NASCAR XFINITY Series record?
“That’s pretty awesome. Just congratulations to this group of guys and everybody on this Joe Gibbs Racing Camry. It’s awesome to drive fast Toyota Camrys like we’ve been bringing to the race track so hats off to those guys for doing that. This NOS Energy Drink Camry was just that, we were pretty good all day yesterday in practice, all day in the race. I tried to throw it away and screw it up early on by spinning, but man I was just trying to conserve and save and I thought I almost missed the corner so I gave it a little bit more brake and then it just wheel-hopped on me. That’s just how close to on edge we are here and I spun around and got back going and only lost a couple spots, but that couple of spots was pretty important for the rest of the day.”
Can you take us through working your way back up through the field and the penalty on pit road?
“You’re always worried about those situations because I don’t know if it was last year or the year before here where I got in the back and there was a wreck through the esses there and I couldn’t get through and I couldn’t get through and I got clipped and I got crashed. Anything can happen in those situations. But, we had to go to the back and put on a show for all of the fans here today and slicing our way through traffic. There were a couple of moments there that I wasn’t sure that we were going to make it through but everybody did a great job racing me hard, racing me clean and had some fun times.”
What went through your mind on that last restart?
“I just knew – I was hoping and praying we could get to the white flag and then we didn’t, but then I knew once that caution did come out you’ve just got to focus on the restart. You’ve just got to hit your marks on the take off and then you’ve got to be able to know where you want to start slowing down for the corner for turn 1. When I got a good launch on Brad (Keselowski) there and got ahead of him a little bit I kind of guarded my entry in order to make sure not to overshoot it and it was close so I was glad I didn’t go to where I thought I needed to go. All in all, the car cut through there real good and I got a good launch up through the esses and down through the backstretch and had a nice gap on everybody by then.”
