NASCAR CUP SERIES
LAS VEGAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER QUOTES
MARCH 14, 2026
Kyle Busch, driver of the No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet, met with the media in advance of the NASCAR Cup Series practice and qualifying session at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Media Availability Quotes:
It’s a big weekend for the Busch family. Brexton’s out at Madera Speedway to make his Jr. Late Model debut in the 51FIFTY Jr. Late Model’s. Just talk about how excited you are for him…
“Yeah, I think it’s pretty exciting for him, I would guess, as a 10-year-old to get your chance to race for your first time in a big late model, a big car. We were up there the last couple days doing some testing and trying to get her dialed in and make it as good as we could get it. We’ve changed everything under the sun, and we hear the same comments from the drivers, so we’re missing it a little bit there. Hopefully, he can just have some fun; learn a lot and get some experience under his belt with some of that stuff. I would imagine he’s probably one of the youngest guys in there, if not the youngest guy in there, so plenty of time to get better with age and just make some laps.”
One of the neat things about Madera is that it offers young drivers like Brexton the opportunity. Drivers like Jesse Love, Cole Custer have raced there. Other than the fact that Madera is allowing Brexton to race at a young age, is there any reason why you guys chose that specific track?
“No, it’s the only one that lets him do it. I haven’t heard of any others that allow the 10-11 yea olds to race the late models. You’ve got to be 12 on the east coast with everything that I’ve looked up and looked at. It’s just an opportunity. It’s obviously way far away from home, going coast to coast to be able to go race those races. But that’s the opportunity that’s out there, so we’re going to take advantage of it.”
What is the sensation going through turn one and two, especially getting through the bumps and trying to navigate through what seems to be a tricky car?
“Yeah, this track is a bit challenging, obviously, with the bumps. The bumps in (turn) one seem to have always been there. There’s been a few more that have developed over the years. The tunnel’s started to sprout a bump over there. It’s just character, and that’s what you’ve got to work on around this racetrack in order to be fast. These cars obviously being different than the O’Reilly cars or the Trucks, with the ground effects underneath the bottom and running as close to the ground as you can, you have times where you bottom out; you get out of shape and you’ve got to hold onto it. Trying to minimize all of those issues to make sure that you’ve got a good, smooth ride is paramount here, and keeping your momentum going through the center of the corner is all about lap time.”
With this being the first intermediate race of the season, what are you looking to learn that can help set baselines for future mile-and-a-halves this season?
“Yeah, just to kind of get a basis, I guess, of where you stack up against the field. Your setup here at Vegas is not the same as Kansas, Texas, Charlotte or any of those. You’re pretty different at each one of these racetracks that you go to, so trying to pinpoint what allows us to be quicker and what allows us to be further up the pylon to compete, and so that’s what we’ve got to work on here this weekend to get ourselves in tune with the rest of the year.”
This particular race for the past couple of years hasn’t been well. You guys have been working on the car and turning the program around. Where do you see the organization as far as getting to this intermediate track and then going forward for you guys?
“I don’t know. We’ll find out here in a little bit, right? It’s the first intermediate for the year. Last year here, this race was really good for us. I thought we had really good speed. I think we qualified into the top-10.. We were running fourth. We had a bad pit stop, and then we had a loose wheel, lost a tire, all that sort of stuff. So it just kind of derailed after the first time we hit pit road. Can’t have all that happen. Hopefully, we can have some of the same speed that we had here and go from there.”
I know we got used to seeing you run Trucks when you used to come here often. It seems like you have a lot of fun doing so. Trucks obviously put on great races at Las Vegas. Do you feel a certain way knowing that the Trucks isn’t as involved as they used to be here at this facility?
“Yeah, I don’t know what happened with all that, but obviously not having the Trucks here this weekend is a little bit of a downer. I certainly would have chosen that race to be a part of. I always kind of looked forward to coming to Vegas with the Trucks, and they’re just not on the schedule this year. Weird, but I think they go to Charlotte twice now or something like that.
Whatever happens, happens. It is what it is. All good. We’ll get our eight races when we can get them.”
What would you rank this facility for Truck racing amongst other tracks?
“That’s an unfair question to the hometown boy. Certainly on the higher end of the spectrum, for sure.”
You talked about how this track is just kind of getting a basis for this package, but how do you measure that with the new body style of the Chevrolet and comparing it to setups that you’ve run previously?
“Yeah, these cars are so aero-sensitive, it’s crazy. Some of the aero numbers that we have from last year to this year, obviously those are different, so that’s kind of steering us in a little bit different direction as far as setup goes for the race car, how you want your platform to be and how you want your ride model to look and stuff. It’s not always as easy as just ‘copy and paste’ from the previous year. We’ll see how all the key partners do and how they all hit it. The No. 1 car had some really good speed here last fall, but again, all new things coming here this week.”
Weather always seems to be a factor here in the spring race especially. This year is no different with the heat instead of the wind. How do you anticipate that affecting the race conditions this weekend?
“Not too much. I think the heat actually will sort of lend itself to being a little bit closer to last fall when we were here and then again when we come back later this year for the race then. It’ll just be less delta. Obviously the wind is always sort of the bigger issue here in which direction it’s getting blown to how your setups differ between the two ends of the racetrack, but no wind is always easier for the competition.”
Your new crew chief, Jim Pohlman, won the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race here last year in the spring. Just curious if you guys have had any conversations about what could work on the Cup side for tomorrow.?
“Absolutely nothing… nothing. The O’Reilly cars are nothing like the Cup cars. I would have answered that question a lot differently if we were in the previous generation Cup car, but we’re not, so there’s not an ounce of information that correlates.”
News dropped recently about NASCAR maybe ramping things up as far as production for a ‘Days of Thunder’ sequel. What are your thoughts on the potential of that?
“I don’t know how much NASCAR’s involvement is, if they’re the ones calling for it or not, but obviously I think it would be something cool. It would be special. You’ve got to be careful with it, right? Because the first one was so good, you don’t want to screw up the second one. It’s always hard to come back with a better second chance at making a movie.
But no, it’s awesome. I’ve had a chance to speak with the writer a couple times about some of the ideas and what not, so that’s been pretty fun and interesting to see what the concept may be or may not be. But yeah, we’re certainly looking forward to it and seeing it come to fruition.”
Next week, Kurt (Busch) is the Grand Marshal at Darlington Raceway. Did you ever think you’d see your brother as the Grand Marshal of a NASCAR Cup Series race?
“Yeah, I mean when you see some of these guys that retire and move on into different roles, you kind of see them come back and do things, and so obviously that’s no different. Good for him. I think that’s pretty cool. Obviously it was one of the closest finishes in NASCAR history being there at that racetrack with him and Ricky Craven and him not coming out on the top end of it. But pretty exciting nonetheless, especially when you go back and watch the last five-seven laps of what that race was and then understanding that Kurt (Busch) had power steering issues and things like that. So it was great for a long, long time being the number one closest finish, right? It wasn’t until recently that that got surpassed. But it’s good for him. Obviously the NASCAR Hall of Fame induction this offseason was very special as well too, so yeah, he’s living it right.”
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