NASCAR CUP SERIES
DOVER MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER QUOTES
JULY 19, 2025
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 Dover Motor Speedway.
Media Availability Quotes:
Can you talk about the initiative at Dover Air Force Base this week?
“Yeah, Cheddar’s has a special promotion for red, white, and blue. We wanted to give honor to the service members that are over here at Dover Air Force Base, with Dover being the next race on the Cheddar’s calendar. And so, Cheddar’s has painted their car red, white, and blue for this weekend, also in honor of veterans that have or do work at Cheddar’s. There are 67 names on the decklid this weekend, and we’re here to honor those, but also paid a visit over to the military base to help honor some more that were over there.”
What was your take from the visit?
“It’s always enjoyable to be able to go and spend some time with our service members — their passion for the sport and watching us go around the racetrack on Sunday’s. It was really, really cool to just spend some time with them; sign some autographs and take some pictures. There was a foreign exchange student group that was there as well, too, that got to spend some time checking out the race car and looking around on that.
It was a really good piece by Cheddar’s. We appreciate them serving lunch for everyone, as well. They made it a good time for everyone.”
Throughout your career here (at Dover Motor Speedway), you’ve had a bunch of wins, but you’ve also had a bunch of DNFs. Here at the Monster Mile, just how hard is it to stay out of trouble?
“That question started really rough, by the way (laughs). I mean, I would probably venture to say that I’ve had a bunch of wins at a lot of tracks and also a bunch of DNFs at a lot of tracks. So I think you have feast or famine just about everywhere.
You know, here at Dover, winning three times has certainly been the highlight, and we’ve had some really, really good runs as well, too, of being close to winning. I remember that time when I was so close with the 5 car and finishing second at Jimmie Johnson… right up his tailpipe and was told to leave him alone and let him win the race (laughs). So, you know, it’s just been a great track for me over the years. Same as Richmond, Bristol, a bunch of places. It’s a great place to race. It’s fun. It’s really challenging, but yet lends itself to really good drivers and really good cars.
Looking at the weekend last year, Dover was obviously one of your best runs of the season. You got the pole and you finished top-five. Is there anything that can be taken from that, even though it was an April race compared to July now, the new tire compound… there are a lot of differences, but is there anything you can take from last year’s run to help you?
“I would say that you take everything that you did use last year because it was good for you, and you try to just look at all of that and try to replicate that as much as you can without knowing anything about the tire with no tire test being here, no wheel force test being here, anything like that. We’re all sort of up in the air on exactly what that’s going to be. So you might as well just copy and paste last year; go out there on the racetrack and hope that it suits your race car again this year like it did last year.”
You’re the winningest active driver here at Dover with three wins. That means you got three ‘Miles the Monster’ trophies. I’m curious what it was like, if you can reflect back, what it was like winning that first trophy here, and if that ‘Miles the Monster’ trophy is one of the more sought after as a driver?
“I think it’s so hard to win races anymore, honestly, that you just take any one that you can get. It doesn’t matter if it’s here at Dover, Martinsville, Phoenix or wherever. You certainly will just want to win the race. There’s definitely some cool trophies that are out there, Dover being one of those with the cool Monster trophy that you get. That’s a special piece. I always looked up to that trophy. I was able to win a couple of Truck ones, a couple of Xfinity ones, but then finally was able to capture the big one with a Sunday win for my first time. They’re all special and they all mean a lot, but this place is very tough, especially in that era going up against Jimmie Johnson. It was really hard to get those trophies as he was hoarding them all.”
Last year there was a lot of talk about after this race, should people get rid of the mirrors? Should NASCAR take the mirrors away from you guys because this is a track where aero-blocking is so prevalent, as Denny (Hamlin) did to (Kyle) Larson last year. What’s your stance on the mirror… do you want it in the cars? Do you want to get rid of it?
“I mean, us talking about it isn’t going to change anything, right? But I would say that if you run the mirror, you don’t get a spotter. If you want a spotter, then you don’t get the mirror, the camera. So, pick one.”
What would you pick?
“I would pick the spotter over the mirror.”
With NASCAR combining now the practice session for everybody getting out there for 50 minutes, is that a benefit to have everybody on track at the same time, and even when it comes to being able to evaluate where everybody stacks up?
“I must be really stupid because I was scratching my head on why. What are we doing? But then I thought — well if it rains, which I guess we’re worried about some sort of weather that’s not here, that one group gets practice and the other doesn’t. So if the track is just open, everybody can go. So if you miss out, you miss out. It’s your own fault. So I think that’s really the only reason why it happened that way.
We don’t have enough tires. We have probably 10 minutes of tire and we have a 50-minute sessions. So you’re going to have to be mindful of just — if you go out and run five laps and come in and look for an adjustment, go out and run five laps, come in and look for an adjustment. But if you want to go out there and make a long run, like we all typically do at all of these big places, then you’re going to go until you feel like you shouldn’t go any further and you’ll be done on your first set, your only set.”
You’ve had two good finishes in a row. How much are you looking at the points with six races left in the regular season?
“Yeah, I mean, you’re obviously looking at it every week. I think we leave probably the fifth race of the year looking at points like where we’re at and what are we doing? But honestly, points take care of themselves when you run good. Results are what matters. Being able to get stage points and being able to get good finishes will all equate to higher point totals and you not having to look at the sheet. So obviously with a ‘win and you’re in’, you really don’t have to pay any attention to it.
That’s certainly on our radar right now. We’ve had a couple of good weeks where we’ve made up some of the deficit. I feel like there is potential and opportunity for us to continue that way, and we want to continue to climb that way and put ourselves above the cut for making the playoffs.”
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