KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 Interstate Batteries Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Is it harder to race in the heat at Daytona or win on the road course at Sonoma last week?
“I think everything in its own way is its own challenge. Certainly last week was a tremendous opportunity for us in our No. 18 M&M’s Crispy Toyota to get to victory lane. That was so awesome to have that and to feel that feeling again of getting to victory lane. That was pretty special and to do it as fast as we did I guess, obviously being back for five or six races, whatever it was – was pretty special too. Look forward to this weekend and getting back here to Daytona. Just kind of being able to get back out there on the race track and of course have the opportunity to be back and to race this weekend. Certainly, didn’t last long for things to turn bad again, but that’s behind us and we move on. Look forward to hopefully being able to run the full 400 miles here tomorrow night and try to stay unscathed in order to just have a good, solid finish.”
Do you feel safer at Daytona with the safety improvements that have been implemented?
“I wouldn’t say you ever feel safe, but you’re certainly grateful for the opportunity with the race tracks – not just Daytona, but all the race tracks to continue to work on the evolution of safety as well as NASCAR, the work that they’ve done throughout the years with the seats and the HANS device and our restraints and everything. I’m grateful that the Daytona International Speedway was as complimentary as they were after the crash here in the spring. They wanted to fix it and they wanted to do everything they could do in their power to make sure everything was done right here at the speedway and to make it first class. I think they’ve done that. I think there’s certainly always room for improvements – any facility you go to, I feel like there’s room for improvement. Seeing those done here at Daytona was really good.”
Do you believe you’re legacy will be as a safety advocate in NASCAR due to your crash?
“Certainly, I never really wanted to be the advocate or the spearhead of the safety initiative, but it seems as though I’ve kind of taken on that role just through my injury that I had. There’s a lot of improvements that all these race tracks can make. I say that because there’s never a situation, us being race car drivers and crashing and what not, that you can plan for. You’ve always got to plan for the worst. We think about it and you think about the SAFER barriers running along the inside walls in the corners because we’ve probably never really hit there before, but in all reality it just hasn’t happened yet. I think that we all need to just take a step and really pour every effort into everywhere around the race tracks and I say that, fortunately Ryan Briscoe is okay. In reality, there’s no sense in grass. We have absolutely no reason to have grass at any of these facilities. I think that needs to be one of the next biggest pushes that we can all have. At any race track, if there’s a crash on the frontstretch, even here, we tend to like to crash coming to or coming out of the tri-oval. For us to always have avenues to go to and just kind of get away from the crash, but it always makes our jobs a lot easier or better than just having no opportunity and having to center-punch the guy that we’re looking at. I think there’s still a lot of room to grow and to get better.”
Have you been able to visit the area of the race track where you made impact?
“Actually Joie Chitwood (track president) and NASCAR invited me early to take a ride around and just kind of take a look at some of the things that they’ve done. We went early yesterday, just after lunch and was able to take a look at some of those things. Actually got out of the van that we were in and just walked the area a little bit, kind of looked at some things and made some more suggestions of what else they could kind of look at and try to make improvements to. They were all well receptive and I think it was a good thing that we did that. Hopefully again, we can just continue to see the evolution of safety at all these race tracks continue to expand.”
Were you consulted on the changes made to the track?
“I was not, no. I was not actually. I’m sure they just took everything they saw from the crash and maybe they just took everything from my description of the crash and they learned from that, but no face-to-face, no talking about anything else besides my presser.”
Was it important to you to visit with the staff at Halifax Hospital yesterday?
“Going back to Halifax was something that Samantha (Busch) and I wanted to do once we kind of got home from the Charlotte hospital. We were like, ‘Man, they were so awesome there.’ We just kind of reflected on our stay that we had and knew that those people really cared about what they did and cared about their jobs and everything like that. It was a beautiful hospital as well as the job that all those people did was really wonderful. We just wanted to make them aware of how appreciative we were and that other people should be as appreciative too. We’ve had some other stays in hospitals that haven’t quite been so nice. We just wanted to let them know that they’re doing a fantastic job there and they were real receptive and of course many of the nurses that were there were the same ones that we had while we were there with our stay. It was really cool.”
How much were you looking forward to getting back on track yesterday and then having the accident?
“Getting back to practice and getting out there on the race track, I just wanted to get out there and make some laps and feel my car on the long run and get the tires to where they would wear out a little bit and you would kind of slide around some. Never even got that far. It was a bit disappointing and frustrating all at the same time because our guys, they work really hard and they build great race cars as do all the teams out here. That was a new car for us that we wanted to get a taste of and run here in the race to see if it was something that we could build a copy of for Talladega or maybe even coming back here in Daytona in February. That didn’t happen, we’re not going to race it. We’re going to race a backup and kind of move on from there. Just hope that the backup is good enough to have an opportunity for a solid finish. That’s kind of all we need, we’d love to win and we’re going to run up front hopefully all night long, but we’ll take what we can get.”
Was there a reason you aren’t racing in the XFINITY Series race tonight and how has your perspective changed now that you are a parent?
“The original plan was for me to not be in the XFINITY car until Kentucky so that would’ve been next weekend so I wasn’t supposed to run double duty until that point. So, this weekend obviously doesn’t fit within that. The reason we came back early for Michigan was because we couldn’t find a substitute. Nobody wanted to do it so I was sort of strong-armed into doing that one. Fortunately it worked out really well for us — we went to victory lane. Erik Jones will do a great job tonight I’m sure in the 54 Monster car. I’m looking forward to seeing him hopefully win tonight. Past that of course having a son I think obviously it will change your life for the good. I think everything has been awesome thus far. Having Brexton here and my wife Samantha it’s awesome to be able to have them with us every single weekend, but more importantly I think it changes you a little bit but it can’t make you soft. You certainly have got to go out here and be a fierce competitor just like the rest of these guys and not let it weaken your spirit any that you’re just here collecting a check. I want to win races, I want to win trophies and celebrate with my team as well as my family. At the same time, we always know there’s a risk and that risk is an unknown. Anything can happen. We obviously saw that here in Daytona in February. We’ll just continue on and pray to the good Lord that he keeps you safe and you come home.”
Did you have any suggestions for Joie Chitwood beyond removing the grass and paving that area?
“Yeah, there’s a little bit more of an opening over there in the area in which I crashed that we’d all kind of like to see get closed up some. They have a challenge there with the road course obviously having safer barriers there and everything kind of going on. So, we’d love to be able to see that area continue to be closed up more like it is off of turn four. Turn four has got a small gap over there where the safety workers and their vehicles can come in and out. That was the only other suggestion and obviously of course the grass is an issue that I think a lot of the drivers would echo my statements on.”
Is there something to be said for getting your Daytona crash out of the way during yesterday’s practice?
“I might have another one tomorrow night you know. It’s just the way this place is and the way these cars run so close together. I mean, it’s nothing to joke about I guess, but it just sucks it happened. I feel bad for the team guys. I mean, man, we’ve wrecked a lot of cars with the 18 car this year whether it’s been me, David Ragan, Erik Jones. You know we’ve had our fair share of crashes and so that team has just busted their butt way too hard this year and they deserve better than that so just hate it that it happened to us again yesterday.”
Do you feel you need to take more of a leadership role with safety concerns your accident in February?
“I don’t know that I’ve necessarily taken the leadership role in safety as much as some other drivers have. I would say Ryan Newman is a huge advocate for the safety side. I think Jeff Burton was too or maybe still is. But, as far as being proactive I think these race tracks know what needs to happen. I mean it’s not a secret. It’s not us drivers telling them where we’d like to see a wall, it’s kind of taking a survey driving around a race track and looking at different ways that a race car may happen to hit that wall. It’s not rocket science, it just needs to happen.”
How do you convince the tracks to pave the grass areas?
“As far as the race track and being able to put more grass in one of the comments from (Joie) Chitwood was I think they’re limited here in Daytona because you’re only supposed to have so much pavement per a square area and you’ve got to have some — I don’t know if it’s vegetation or what the language is there but — right so they can only build so many drains and all of that stuff. Well, here’s my point, I’ve never seen a car flip over because it’s gone through a puddle but I guess that could happen. I don’t know. But, when a car turns around backwards and it gets to grass and it starts to lift and then it tumbles because it continually keeps getting chunked up in the grass, that’s not right. The Ryan Briscoe wreck, if he would’ve got turned around, if it would’ve been paved there ‘a’ he may not have gone over ‘b’ if he did go over he would’ve just slid on his lid for a while and he wouldn’t have gone through the tumble. The hits that keep coming that are pretty violent. I’ve been in a hit like that I’ve been over on my lid a few times and it’s not fun to continually get those beating and banging around inside that race car does not feel good.”
Do you have a list of race tracks where you’d like to see some changes?
“Not off the top of my head, no not really. Phoenix we used to have the dogleg in the grass down the backstretch and now that place is entirely asphalt and I think on the west coast they appreciate that you don’t have grass so you don’t use water. Bristol — that’s another race track there’s no grass that a car can touch. Darlington there’s no grass that a car can touch so all those places it can be done and it is done at some places. I’m not so sure that it couldn’t be done at more places. But, as far as safety barriers and walls and things like that any wall that’s unprotected we’ve got to fix that. We saw some pretty hard licks down the frontstretch at California in that same Indy Car race where there was no safer barrier. So, us drivers we’re dumb enough and we can figure out how to crash in straight line. It should be harder than it is but it’s pretty easy. So, it’s just inevitable that we just try to fix those things and make it as safe as possible. Yeah, we can all still get hurt through safer barriers or tire packs or anything like that but at least we’re doing our job and we’re trying to help the situation if it does arise that we try to keep these drivers as safe as we can.”
