KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 M&M’s 75 Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 1st
Did running the Truck Series race yesterday prepare you for today?
“I’d say it certainly helps when you get to run other divisions and that’s why I do it to pay off on Sundays. It doesn’t work every single weekend, but it works more times than it doesn’t, so can’t say enough about everyone at KBM (Kyle Busch Motorsports) for giving me a great piece yesterday to help me learn, teach me some more things about Martinsville that I didn’t already know in 30 other prior starts. I can’t say enough about this whole JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing) team on this side. This M&M’s Camry was awesome in practice yesterday. We had a really good car through practice and Adam (Stevens, crew chief) made some really good adjustments overnight to keep us where we need to be in order to run up front all day, led a lot of laps, probably led the most laps there and to win here in Martinsville is pretty cool – finally get to take a clock home. A lot of people said I didn’t deserve yesterday – maybe I don’t – but I certainly got one today.”
How big was it to have the preferred lane on the final restart?
“That was huge – the race off pit road – so I’ve got to thank my guys. Obviously, they were flawless today on pit road. They did a really good job. We made a few adjustments to the car throughout the day and they kept getting me out not even losing a spot on pit road, so they did a great job for me. That was the key to the race – being able to restart on the bottom like that. We all talked as a group earlier this morning about how we were going to do that and what we were going to do and we all said, ‘Okay, with 10 to go, it’s pretty much off limits, no more,’ and it was 12 to go, so it was pretty much right on the brink there, so sorry Matt (Kenseth), but I can’t say enough about my teammates. They helped me a lot at this place as well too – Denny Hamlin most importantly. He’s a huge key to our success here, getting me better over the years and just continuing to evolve our program and of course Matt Kenseth coming on board. He’s been a huge influence for me to get better here because he just came over and was really good right off the bat, but awesome day for M&M’s, NOS Energy Drink, Toyota, Interstate Batteries, JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing), TRD (Toyota Racing Development) engines – can’t say enough about those guys – so real pumped about this one here.”
