NASCAR CUP SERIES
MARTINSVILLE SPEEDWAY
NOCO 400
TEAM CHEVY PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT
APRIL 15, 2023
KYLE BUSCH, NO. 8 MARK III EMPLOYEE BENEFITS CAMARO ZL1, met with the media prior to the NASCAR Cup Series practice and qualifying session at Martinsville Speedway. Press Conference Transcript:
AFTER EXPERIENCING THE WET WEATHER TIRES YESTERDAY, IS THERE ANYTHING YOU WOULD SUGGEST TO NASCAR AS FAR AS CHANGES IN PROCEDURES?
“I think the biggest thing is the missed opportunities of just going early. If the intent is to go earlier with this idea, then lets do it. We were cleared I think 30 minutes before we ended up taking the green flag. Like we wasted 30 minutes with more track drying. I think some of that was pit road, but we could have gone sooner. And then we ran on the wets the longest run of the race in a dry condition. And then when it got raining again and the caution was out, just make the call – like alright, wet weathers and go back on wets, and then let us run however long we run and see what happens with the track. As it’s raining, just that little drizzle that we had, I think that’s sort of the optimum condition of having 36 trucks out there running around and making laps. It’s going to keep the track relatively wet, relatively dry. It’s going to be OK, I think. But at Martinsville, where speeds are 90 to 40, why don’t we try it here. Get an idea and get some data on it with a race and get ready for say Loudon, if it happens at Loudon. If we go to Loudon right now, I don’t know that I have the confidence because I don’t know what’s going to happen from here yesterday.”
HOW WOULD YOU SAY DRIVING ON THE WET TIRES AT MARTINSVILLE COMPARES TO A ROAD COURSE, WHERE THE SPEEDS ARE DIFFERENT, BUT YOU STILL HAVE THE HARD BRAKING IN THE CORNERS AND EVERYTHING?
“Yeah, it’s just less grip. I think laps times were maybe two seconds slower or something like that. So you’re just out of the gas earlier; you’re on the brakes less because you don’t want to create a lockup scenario. You have to corner slower because the grip of the tires is way less and acceleration is slower. Everything is just way slower. It feels like slo-mo almost. But it seems like there were a lot of guys out there that were struggling a little bit with grip, and were loose on entry, loose on exit and were just kind of sliding around and hanging on. Our truck was pretty good, so I was happy and pleased with the product that we had there. The tires were wearing. It was dry, but they didn’t blister up or chunk up, come apart or anything like that. Again, after looking at it, if NASCAR officials on pit road were looking at the tires and everything after the first run, then it’s like – hey, OK let’s take the next step.. let’s go to the next level and see what we can get out of this program idea.”
CHASE SAID THAT WHILE HE WAS OUT THAT HE TALKED TO YOU. WHAT WAS THAT CONVERSATION AND ARE YOU HAPPY THAT HE’S BACK?
“Yeah, we just talked a little bit back and forth about my experience of my injury and what my stuff was like. Everybody’s injuries are different, but my leg injury was different than his leg injury. It was actual more similar to my foot, where I had plates and screws in my foot. It was not always the easiest to endure a race with the left foot and braking and all that sort of stuff. His is more knee and joint related. If he runs the whole race, he’s going to be sore afterwards. It’s just not easy to jump right back in and go. Even in my fifth week when I won at Sonoma, I couldn’t walk afterwards, it hurt so bad.
Welcome him back. It’s great to have him back. I think a lot of his fans missed him and want to see him back in the car.”
WOULD YOU SAY THAT GENERALLY-SPEAKING, GOING TO THE SHORT TRACKS, IT’S A LITTLE MORE MELLOW THAN IT WAS IN THE PAST? HAVE THE ROAD COURSES ALMOST BECOME MORE OF WHAT WE USED TO INVISION THE SHORT-TRACKS TO BE LIKE?
“I don’t know.. I don’t think so. I mean there’s still some gouging that happens during the short-track races. It’s not quite as frequent, I guess, that we see somebody get into somebody and create a yellow or whatnot. But the restarts and stuff do tend to get hectic. If you get a caution in Cup race – any race for that matter – within 20 to 30 laps to go, it’s going to be a complete disaster because everybody is just dive-bombing and trying to get all of the spots they can, and ricochet off of everybody to get further up towards the front. Honestly, you probably have a better shot winning from sixth with 20 to go than you do from the lead. It’s the nature of it and what all we’ve come accustomed to be with the amount of respect it’s been the last couple of years.”
HOW DO YOU ANTICIPATE THE NEW SHORT-TRACK PACKAGE HERE AT MARTINSVILLE?
“I would hope to think it’s better than what we had.. let’s go with that. Richmond, I felt like the cars were a bit more of a handful. I felt like you could follow a little bit closer than what you could last year, but you still had those deficiencies. So I think we’re still going to see some of that deficiency here, even though you’re rolling through the corners maybe 60 mph or whatever it is. Mark Martin said it best years, years and years ago – aero-dynamics matter, downforce matters. Put your hand out the window going down the highway at 20 or whatever.. I don’t recommend going down the highway at 20. Maybe I meant 20 over (laughs).
The Phoenix race, when I ran the Xfinity car, you could get right up to the guy in front of you rear bumper and you could close that gap. You could get to him and you could actually mess up the guy in front of you if you get him aero-loose. With our cars, you can’t really get there. And if you try really, really hard and you do get there, the front guy feels no effect. He just goes on his merry way and you feel all of the blow-out, is what we call it. The Cup cars are still not where they need to be. We don’t seem to have that fixed yet.”
IN TERMS OF YOUR COMEBACK AND THE PHYSICAL CHALLENGES, WHAT IS THE MENTAL CHALLENGE THAT AN ATHLETE HAS TO DEAL WITH IN COMING BACK AND DOING THE SAME MOTION OVER AND OVER WHEN YOU KNOW IT’S GOING TO HURT? HOW DID YOU GET THROUGH THAT AND WHILE EVERYONE’S DIFFERENT, IS THAT AS MUCH THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE FOR CHASE (ELLIOTT) AS MUCH AS THE PAIN THRESHOLD?
“Well, I mean I don’t know how long he’s been walking for, but I don’t think it’s been very long.. maybe 14 days, so just the brunt load. Going for a jog.. I seriously doubt he’s doing that. When you’re in a racecar, you’re hitting that brake pedal and you’re pushing that; you’re pushing load through all of those joints down through the brake pedal. It’s going to be an uncomfortable scenario for him for the next little bit and what all happens. But again, I’m no medical expert or doctor, so I don’t really know. Just from my experience, that’s how it was for me. It wasn’t always pleasant with the plates and the screws for the whole year until I got them out. When I got them out and I walked out of the hospital, I was like – damn, I feel good.. this feels like a brand new foot. Since then, I’ve been alright with it. I’ve had little bouts here or there with probably the first signs of arthritis and whatnot, from just the joints and everything. But otherwise, I’ve been good.”
WE’RE ABOUT ONE-THIRD OF THE WAY THROUGH THE REGULAR SEASON. HOW DO YOU LOOK BACK AT WHAT YOU’VE BEEN ABLE TO DO AND THE THINGS THAT YOU GUYS ARE TRYING TO IMPROVE?
“I can’t look back to California and think any higher of that moment, being able to win that race and what that meant for our team and everything. For myself from the off-season and getting into this year, being able to win there was huge. The last few weeks have been a little bit up-and-down. We struggled a lot at Richmond. That was probably our poorest performance and we salvaged a 14th-place finish. If we would have been on a flip of the strategy like the No. 9 team was, our pace was the same as the No. 9 and he ran second, so potentially we could have stolen a top-five out of that day. But last week at Bristol dirt, we were fast. We were good and running upfront; one of the quickest guys much of that race. We got smashed in the wall about four times and kept bending the rear toe each time and deteriorated the car and ended up falling back. Tried to carry it too much myself and stuffed it in the fence. Just didn’t get the finish that we deserved out of that one. If I would have had 20 positions better on that, which I think would have been plenty easy to do, we would be fourth in points right now. We just need to keep getting points, man. Continue to improve and evolve our program. The guys have been doing a really good job. Really impressed with Randall (Burnett, crew chief). The work that we’ve done with Team Chevy and everything else to get us continuing in the right direction.”
WHAT’S IT LIKE FOR A DRIVER’S PSYCHE WHEN YOU GO THROUGH A PROLONGED WINLESS STREAK?
“It’s not fun.. it’s hard. A lot of self-doubt, probably. You think about it, right? But then you’re like – no man, I know how to do this. I haven’t changed. I’m not sucking, but something’s just missing. So it’s definitely tough on the mental-psyche if you haven’t won in a little while. It’s not always the easiest thing to go through, but with our sport now with the parity that you have, you’re probably going to see a lot more races go between victories.”
DO YOU EVER GO BACK AND LOOK AT HIGHLIGHTS OR ANYTHING TO REMIND YOURSELF THAT YOU’RE STILL THAT GUY?
“Not really. Moreso for me, it’s just trying to continue to look forward and work hard at what we need to do to get our stuff better to go forward to get better. There’s not a lot I can do, but as much as I can do, I try to do. Just help the team and the organization in all the stuff that we do. If you continue to keep doing your prep work, you have no excuses. If all that work that’s going into it isn’t paying off, then you kind of wonder what you’re doing or how you’re getting beat by others. But man, when it comes down to it, it’s just the nature of the luck of the draw I guess in how good your car is that particular weekend.”
WITH CHEVY AND THE OTHER OEM’S WORKING TOWARDS BETTER SIMS, WITH THE SET OF EVENTS WITH LAST NIGHT’S RACE WITH THE WET WEATHER TIRES, WHAT ARE SOME AREAS YOU THINK CAN BE IMPROVED WITH THAT?
“I don’t know.. I think sometimes you have to have real-life situations in order to verify sim. You can’t always trust sim or believe sim. Trust me, I’ve been doing a lot of it (laughs). I feel like we’re going to the race track to win every single weekend and we’re running 14th, so you can’t always believe what you feel on a computer. So like I said earlier, yesterday’s situation, we could have been back on wets and just gone for it and tried. If we looked worse than we should, then throw a yellow and say – OK, that’s not working.. let’s let it dry out a little bit more or whatever and find where that level of wet is. But honestly, for how it was, I felt like even there at the end when we were all brought down pit road while it was raining and the track was getting wet, we should have put wets on and rolled right back out there. We should have went green and gave it a shot just to see. Get the data on it. That’s your best data is a real-life situation.”
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