MONSTER ENERGY NASCAR CUP SERIES
FIREKEEPERS CASINO 400
MICHIGAN INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT
JUNE 7, 2019
KURT BUSCH, NO. 1 MONSTER ENERGY CAMARO ZL1 Media Breakout Session Highlights:
HOW DID YOU FEEL THE AIR WAS ON THE CARS HERE AT MICHIGAN IN THE PRACTICE?
“By itself, the car ran comfortable and ran really good speed. In the draft, whether everybody is struggling with it or for us on the No. 1 car and the 42, we both felt like our drafting ability was compromised a bit.”
WAS IT JUST AS FAST AS LAST YEAR?
“You know, I didn’t even check the lap time to know the overall lap time. But by itself it felt slower, but in the draft, it feels faster.”
CAN YOU EXPLAIN MORE ABOUT THE INSTABILITY?
“It’s a feel of when the air isn’t pushing on all four corners of the car. It’s when you are in the dirty air, the front side feels lighter, and the rear of the car feels like it wants to swing around easier. It just has less grip in all areas of the car. It almost feels like someone is picking you up by the back of your collar and you are lighter in your shoes because you are not planted to the ground the way you are with the clean air. So, that dirty air makes it feel like someone is picking the car up and you are trying to navigate the car through the corner with much less downforce.”
DOES IT MAKE YOU FEEL INSECURE?
“Yeah. It’s like you are trying to figure out which end is going to slide first. You are trying to give feedback to the crew because things will change with the air pressure build up in the tires too.”
ARE PARTNERS GOING TO FIGURE INTO THIS LIKE THEY DO AT TALLADEGA?
“It is still too much about handling here. It’s a two-mile track and it’s almost like the speeds are too high for it to blend into a Talladega or Daytona style draft.”
WAS POCONO WHAT YOU THOUGHT IT WAS GOING TO BE NOW LOOKING IN THE REAR VIEW MIRROR?
“What I am starting to see is that the pace is still too fast. Pocono, I thought would be slower and there would be more of a draft effect. Here, the pace is fast and yes, there is a draft, but I want it to be a larger effect. So, the only way I think you would make a change at this point is to go to a different sized tapered spacer and slow the cars down. You would make it to where the cars are forced to run in a draft.”
HOW WILL THE RESTARTS BE HERE?
“Pocono is a track that will spoil us in how cool it is to see us all fan out as wide as we get and funnel back down. We need the third groove here to get groomed in and I hope that happens with ARCA and the Xfinity guys. We still have to get down to two wide, but restarts are still going to be pretty wild. Going up through the gears, guys can still go four-wide, but you have to get it narrowed back down. We have to get the track a little wider to where the car will have that kind of comfort and grip level.”
DRIVERS HAVE BEEN SAYING ITS SITUATIONAL AND YOU CAN’T PLAN TO DO THE SAME THING EVERYTIME ON RESTARTS. AND THE YOUNG GUYS SAY THE VETERANS ARE BETTER BECAUSE THEY KNOW WHAT TO DO ON RESTARTS. SITUATIONAL FOR A VETERAN MEANS WHAT?
“I don’t want to give away too many answers to the test, and it’s not that I know all the answers. But we had a really bad handling car last week that was ready to finish 25th and we got 11th. That was based off of my anticipation of how the restarts were going to go. As a young guy, you want to apply it as fast as you just learned it. Whereas a veteran, we sit back and watch a bit more, and then apply it when we need to. You can’t go into it with a solid plan because everybody is going to change from what they did on the last restart right before that.”
Team Chevy high-resolution racing photos are available for editorial use.
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