NASCAR CUP SERIES
DARLINGTON RACEWAY
GOODYEAR 400
TEAM CHEVY PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT
MAY 5, 2021
KURT BUSCH, NO. 1 MONSTER ENERGY CAMARO ZL1 1LE, Teleconference Transcript:
WHAT MAKES DARLINGTON SUCH A CHALLENGING TRACK FROM THE DRIVER’S SEAT?
“The challenge lies within the layout and the asphalt at that track. The original superspeedway of NASCAR, and how it was built so early on, and it is still part of our schedule, and the unique design of the track and how Turns 3 and 4 are much smaller than Turns 1 and 2. The setup is a compromise all race long. And it’s one of those fun tracks where the closer you run to the wall, the more grip you gain and the more speed you carry. And then it’s the old cliché of race the race track. And we have to do that because it’s so difficult and the tire wear is so high. So, there are a lot of things the driver has to juggle at that race.”
DO PEOPLE STILL ASK YOU ABOUT THAT RACE WITH RICKY CRAVEN? WHAT MEMORIES DO YOU HAVE OF THAT NOW THAT WE’RE RACING AT DARLINGTON TWICE A YEAR?
“Yeah, I get hit up every Spring. The awesome footage starts rolling out. The throwback race, and then FOX Sports replayed that race a couple of days ago. And yes, it’s fun to tell the story and re-live it. I feel like I’ve told that story two thousand times and I finished two thousandths of a second behind Craven. So, I’m going to win this thing one day. I’m going to win it as I tell the story one day. But it’s just one of those races where I remember it so vividly and it was an incredible battle between two guys that never crossed the line to flat out dump the other guy. But we did everything and threw the kitchen sink at each other and created one of the best finishes ever in NASCAR.”
WITH THE NEXT GEN BEING UNVEILED TODAY, WHAT WILL TEAMS BE ABLE TO ADJUST ON LIKE IF YOU’RE HAVING AN ISSUE, WHERE ARE YOU GOING TO BE ABLE TO WORK ON THIS CAR?
“It’s an exciting day for NASCAR and for the Next Gen era of the direction of where we’re going in this sport. And with this car’s design, it’s simple things; but yet it’s new innovation and the technology that has been poured into it, hopefully will still balance out like and old race car feel with tire wear, management of the aerodynamics on the balance and the shifts. And, as far as adjustments, right now that box has been really tight. I say tight; it’s just that we haven’t explored a lot because we’ve been just trying to get through the research and development stages and understand what the big needle movers are as far as changing an aero balance, the handling balance, and then they’ve taken the car to all variety of race tracks. And so now it’s a matter of everybody jumping into what are going to be part of the rules and what can we change on race day as far as the shocks, track bar, will there be a driver adjustable track bar, where the brake bias is. Can you move it left and right, forward and back? The sequential gearbox, that’s an exciting feel to drive and there won’t be much to change there but can we change our gear ratios when we’re at track? So, lots of things still have to be discussed and explored and you want as many options; in my mind, for the teams to still go through and try to fine-tune it to the track and to that driver’s needs and wants? That way, it still gets tailored around and you have good cars and bad cars.”
TO WHAT DO YOU ATTRIBUTE THE WAY THE SEASON HAS GONE FOR THE SERIES WITH 10 DIFFERENT WINNERS IN 11 RACES? WHY ARE WE SEEING THIS DIVERSITY OF WINNERS COMPARED TO OTHER YEARS?
“It’s pretty wild. I’d love to have that one magic quote or button to press to say this is why. But a lot of things add up to the competition. The competition right now, the parody that everybody has; whether it’s a manufacturer or the teams against another team with the same manufacturer; and then just the way like the tire sequences and the pitting. If you stay out it’s a fifty-fifty call. If you pit it’s a fifth-fifty call on if you’re going to be able to get back to the lead or get back to that position you were running. It’s crazy. Like the sequences of the yellows and how they just seem to match up. Oh really? The yellow just came out and we’ve got 20 laps on our tires and 20 is that fifty-fifty call on staying out or not. So, you just roll with it. And then, the variety of tracks that we’ve been on so far have been a large variety and now we get into some of these Summer months where we see the Michigans and Poconos and the faster tracks so the aero will come back to be more important. And then we get into the road course season, and we’ll see what we see for trends there because Chase Elliott and Christopher Bell, he was like out at the Daytona Road Course. There are certain guys, and I hope that we’re one of them, where we’re able to capitalize on the road courses.”
WITH YOUR EXPERIENCE IN THE NEXT GEN CAR, WHAT ARE THE CHALLENGES GOING TO BE FOR THE DRIVER AND THE ADJUSTMENTS NEEDED AND WHAT TYPE OF PERSON WILL IT FAVOR EARLY-ON NEXT YEAR?
“The Next Gen car has quite a bit of difference to it. With independent rear suspension, sequential guar box, much bigger brakes; the car, when I drove it at the ROVAL was much more agile with its acceleration, deceleration, and primarily, it’s maneuverability to switch back, left to right. And the car was an impressive, easy two seconds quicker on the ROVAL circuit. And then, out on the oval, the car had a weird feel with the independent rear suspension on corner entry; and then corner exit with the aerodynamics that we were still balancing out. And so, I think the key thing for any driver to be successful, no matter where you are and what you’re doing, you have to adapt. And the adaptability of a driver, and his openness and willingness to challenge himself or herself is defined things that work for them and the team and make sure they are confident in those directions and go that way. Just a simple pit sequence, we’re going to be in second gear coming down pit road and you have to go through first, then get to neutral; yes, you can push the clutch in, but you’ve got to keep track of what gear you’re in. And that reminds me a lot of when I was running Indianapolis at the Indy 500, with those sequential-style gear boxes. So, lots of new things. Old trends, you’ve got to throw away some of them, but then hopefully, my years of experience will balance out into finding that edge.”
ON YOUR PERFORMANCE THIS SEASON, IS THERE ANY PANIC AT ALL IN WHERE YOUR TEAM IS RIGHT NOW? OR ARE YOU SEEING SOMETHING WE DON’T FROM THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN?
“We’re doing really good at running 11th at the end of the Stages (laughs); and we haven’t quite found the balance in traffic this year. Our car, we’ve made a step in the wrong direction in my mind, on maneuverability and being able to put fresh tires on and to go for it. Right now, our car seems to take 10 laps to get the tires situated and heated-up. And so, at Kansas, I think we were 11th in the first Stage, 12th in the second Stage and finished the race in 15th. We’re just not getting the job done. That’s flat out. And we’re not ignoring that fact. At the end of Kansas, Harvick was back there after a pit road penalty with us. We were one of the last cars on the lead lap. And he knifed his way through there to get to second. And our car just could not give me the confidence to make moves and to make bold, carving decisions through the corner. And I just had to kind of nurse it home. We needed those points because we’ve just been in a snowball. We had a bad finish at Atlanta. And then we started 30th the next week due to the qualifying matrix. Well, when you do that, now you’re in the back; plus, you get a bad pit selection. Now guys are blocking you on pit road all day. So, it’s been a battle. And we’re just laughing at the whole matrix of the qualifying and starting position. I’m really excited for COTA and for the Coke 600, where we get our own qualifying sessions.”
WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THE SAFETY ASPECTS OF THE NEXT GEN CAR?
“The car has all the technology that we’ve poured into our current car plus some. And with all of the sled testing I’ve seen, the data, the rigidness of the car; all of that has improved. And yet, how many ways can you really crash a car to collect all of the data because we can crash cars in all different directions right now. And you’re still not going to get all the data points. The car, to me, looks more rigid. It’s a car that has these crash absorbing materials and these systems in the front and in the rear that you just basically take off and bolt back on new ones after a wreck. And so, you save a lot of the car after a wreck, similar to a bulkhead system in INDYCAR. We’ll see how it plays out. I still think there’s more sled testing that they’re going to do, and we’ll continue to learn more. It’s still only the first of May and there are things that we can do to the current application to adjust it heading into Daytona next year.”
DO YOU HAVE A LOT OF CONFIDENCE IN THE NO. 1 CAR RIGHT NOW AND WHAT THE TEAM IS ABLE TO GIVE YOU ON A WEEKLY BASIS SO YOU CAN CONTEND AND WIN RACES?
“Yeah, I do. I have confidence in every single one of the guys; all of our tools, our application might need to be adjusted at this point. I mean, it’s the same rules package as last year. It’s the same tire. But we’re having all different kinds of movement in the car, primarily in the front. And it changes dramatically from low air to high air for us this year. I got a text this time of year from Aric Almirola over at Stewart Haas. And it was a buddy, an old teammate, and he was just flat out asking for advice on things. And then it was like he just went on this Top 10 run for the next few months. And I’m like hey bro, why do you got to be beating me with all that advice? So, I’ve got to find that same thing. It’s 2021. There are just different trends. And so, we have to really look ourselves in the mirror and challenge ourselves to get out of this little rut that we’re in and put ourselves in a batter Playoff position and to make a run through the Playoffs later. So, lots of cool tracks coming up. Some are in the Playoffs. Some aren’t. The road courses are going to be fun this Summer. No real reason to have a huge panic. But we can’t have any more blow-up races, so to speak. We can’t get caught-up in any wrecks not of our doing.”
LOOKING AHEAD TO DOVER, IT’S BEEN DESCRIBED AS A ROLLER COASTER AND A GIANT BRISTOL. WHAT ARE THE SENSATIONS LIKE FROM THE SEAT?
“I’ve talked with Jimmie Johnson over the years. And, I said man, like Dover is like the fastest place to me. Everything just goes by. Corner entry, jump down into the banking, corner exit; like boom-zoom, the wall goes by and the engine just seems like it’s revving higher. And he goes man, it doesn’t feel like that for me at all. It feels slow. And I go, what track do you think is fast? He goes Bristol. Bristol, to me, is going crazy fast in my mind. And so, I know Johnson has won at Bristol. I’ve got one win at Dover. But both of us are champions and he’s seven-time; but it’s like one guy can absorb a track way different than another guy and have success. And so, Dover is just super-fast for me. And the engine is revving. And then, I’ve got to make sure I don’t over-wear the front tires and build up that front tire pressures. It’s really easy to do that at the concrete tracks.”
DARLINGTON IS THE FIRST RACE IN A WHILE WITH THE 750 HP, LOW DOWNFORCE PACKAGE. HOW MUCH IS THAT GOING TO INCREASE THE RACING AND THE SKILL THE DRIVERS WILL HAVE TO DEAL WITH?
“Yeah, that’s a big change. That’s bold of them. I like it. Of course, any time you give a race car driver horsepower, they’ll take it. And then, it’s supposed to be 90 degrees. It’s going to be hot. The track is going to get slick. It’s going to be an old-school Darlington battle. And you might see way more Darlington stripes than you have in the past. It’s a matter of just not being caught off-guard by how slow the car is going to feel, but how you’ve still got to produce your lap time and take care of the tires. So, a lot of unknowns, especially with no practice, going into this weekend.”
WHAT IS IT ABOUT DARLINGTON THAT SEEMS TO FIT YOUR DRIVING STYLE?
“I feel like the track is a fun challenge that is very different than all the other tracks. And, running up by the wall and carrying speed through Turns 1 and 2, you’ve got to be right on that edge. You’ve got to push it through Turn 2. And then, Turns 3 and 4, I think races are won with good exits off of Turn 4. That’s where you start to catch that guy in front of you and then try to make the pass in Turns 1 and 2. So, you just have to balance that out on where your car is good and where the other guy isn’t. Then, as the race changes, parts of the track aren’t as usable and yet, you’ve still got to get that good lap time. Darlington is a place where it’s like you’re a cook in the kitchen and you’ve got a lot of things going on all race long. But every year that I go back, it’s like the pit crews are that much more important on how you win there.”
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