Joe Gibbs Racing driver Kyle Busch was made available to the media at Sonoma Raceway:
KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 M&M’s 75th Anniversary Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
What sticks out in your mind when you look back on last year’s Sonoma victory?
“I guess winning, obviously. Just having a not so great car, but having the opportunity to have pit strategy and work our way and get ourselves up front and then to have a caution late in the race – really it was able to allow us to get tires on our car for the short run because we seemed to have decent speed on the short run and we were able to pass those guys in front of us on older tires and beat them and out race my brother there. Good effort for us last year here and it was really exciting to get that monkey off our back to get the win and get our season turned around heading in the right direction for really good things at the end of the season.”
Does the off weekend affect your team’s strategy heading into a road course?
“It doesn’t affect you a whole lot besides the difference of what a road course is anyways. It actually is sort of a welcome break to have an off weekend when you come to a road course like this. The stresses and everything that is put on your body at this sort of race is a lot higher than it would be at any other track. Sonoma is a very demanding – physically, mentally and being able to hit your marks and have a fast car and doing a good job behind the wheel to make sure you can have speed yourself. Lots of different things happen here.”
Did you think you had a shot at getting your first win after the injury at Sonoma last year?
“No, it was certainly a welcoming surprise to us for sure. It wasn’t that we circled it on the calendar thinking we’d have a shot to come back and be able to do that. We actually X’d this one out like we were just trying to survive and get out of here with a good day and a good points day. With the way the five races had gone before, coming here last year, the time I had just got back in the car, we weren’t running and finishing the way we needed to. We came here after a 43rd place finish at Michigan – oh look, we did it again this year. It would certainly be nice to turn some things around. Definitely, it seems like the May, June months just don’t go my way and aren’t really on our side.”
Does it impact you at all having radio communications more public with the fans over the broadcasts?
“It certainly opens up our world that used to be private and makes it a lot more public than what it used to be. I’ve definitely changed over the years and holding back a heck of a lot more and not pressing the radio button as much. There’s still those times when you get an outburst here or there, which I think every driver kind of has. You have to be able to refocus and re-energize that energy to something positive that can take you on into a race. I’ve had times where we’ve had outbursts and we’ve had bad finishes and we’ve had outbursts and we’ve had good finishes and we’ve won races doing that. You just have to use it in the right way to help you, but definitely overall it keeps myself a heck of a lot more quiet over the radio.”
Can you put into words what the win last year meant on your march to the championship?
“Coming here last year was really great to be able to score that victory. I think it really propelled us a little bit in giving us a lot of confidence that we can go out there and we can do it and we can win races each and every week. Have to let them come to you sometimes. You can force your hand and you can make mistakes and sometimes when you’re able to just kind of let it all out there and let it be what it is, you can win races that way too. It worked for us and that’s what got us to where we needed to be last year.”
Were you hoping for changes to the package for Daytona?
“As far as rule changes in Daytona, I was certainly hoping that we would see something coming off the race that we saw at Talladega. It wasn’t probably, ‘A,’ very exciting racing and ‘B,’ pretty dangerous for all of us drivers in having three cars go airborne in that event and Danica Patrick having a heavy, heavy hit on the inside wall – real reminiscent to my hit at Daytona. No rule changes is not a welcoming site for me, but it is what it is. We’ll go and crash some more.”
Based on first practice, who looks like your biggest competition?
“I would say Kurt Busch is really good. He’s always fast here, I don’t know what he does, but he’s always fast here, he’s got it figured out. Past him, I’d say that Kyle Larson looks pretty decent honestly and Dale (Earnhardt) Jr., he has a really fast car right now.”
How will the heat the next two days impact you and the race car?
“It will be a hot one, that’s for sure. This is a place though that you can’t necessarily run 100 percent every lap. You’ve got to hold yourself back a little because the tire just won’t withstand running on it as hard as you can every single lap with the fall off. The better you can take care of those tires and the more you take care of yourself then the more you take care of your car. I’m sure there will be some hot tempers here on Sunday, there typically is at a short track and this to me is like a road course short track race and there’s going to be some beating and banging and moving some people out of the way for sure.”
How tough of an adjustment is it to switch to a road course and can you get enough practice to be comfortable?
“I actually felt like I started off a little rusty, but then by the end of the practice sessions I felt like I was getting all I could get out of the race car. Whatever that was, an hour and a half is what it took in order to get really up and going. We’d had some decent speed, but we weren’t all that fast, as fast as we need to be right now so we’ve got some work to do. I enjoy road course racing, it’s just something different and it lends itself to a different fan base probably and a lot of fans that enjoy watching cars go left and go right. Maybe some IndyCar fans and some Formula 1 fans that just like road racing and what kind of goes on here with the NASCAR Cup cars.”
