Busch Holds Court at Dover

Kyle Busch

SEPTEMBER 24, 2004 - Raybestos Rookie Contender Kyle Busch participated in a press conference this morning at Dover International Speedway. Busch is second in the NASCAR Busch Series championship standings, 105-points behind leader Martin Truex Jr.

KYLE BUSCH, #5 LOWE'S/SHOP VAC CHEVROLET: "We've just been trying to work more on making our cars comfortable here as of late instead of just about the speed. I worry more about the comfort of the racecar than looking at the time sheet but Lance [McGrew, crew chief]; he's looking at the time sheet also to see what changes we make to make us faster. It's basically the only thing that we've changed, just working more towards comfort and we've been making some race calls that later on in the year you'll probably make some gutsy race calls in order to try to get yourself up there. But as of right now, I think we've got to keep playing the same game."

NO RAYBESTOS ROOKIE HAS WON THE BUSCH CHAMPIONSHIP. YOU COULD BE THE FIRST. "It's going to be tough. It always is and it will be for the rest of the year with Martin. They have a great team over there. It would be great in order to get it but I'm so young in my career that there's plenty of opportunities later to go after championships more and more down the line. It's always great to set a new milestone or record, but records are always made to be broken, too."

DO YOU SEE THE CHASE FORMAT COMING TO THE BUSCH SERIES? "I think it probably would have been a great idea. It probably would have put more emphasis on the guys that were running 10th through 14th in points in order to make themselves into the top-10 in order to get their spot. They paid a lot of attention to Jamie McMurray, Kasey Kahne, Jeremy Mayfield and all those guys that were 11th. It probably could have given a great opportunity to Ashton Lewis, who's in 10th, who didn't have a sponsor or a main budget this year. He would have got a lot of exposure and a lot of great things going his way in order to try to build up more for the Busch Series, too, so I think overall it could have been a good deal. Like Martin said, it's a great deal to just go after it with one guys instead of having to deal with 10."

WHAT IS YOUR TESTING SCHEDULE FOR THE FINAL MONTHS OF THE SEASON?"I believe last week we had a test at Kansas and we're going to go off and get one in at Darlington, Lowe's Motor Speedway, possibly Atlanta, and I think Homestead is listed."

COMMENT ON THE COMPARISONS BETWEEN YOU AND YOUR BROTHER. "Kurt has always been a main inspiration in my life in order to get racing and things like that. Ever since he started, I've been watching him and of course working on his racecars on weekdays and going to the racetracks on the weekends. It's been great to grow up with such a friend that I've had and now that we're both up in NASCAR, the big leagues you could say, we're both here and it's great to be here. We're trying to take advantage of trying to get these championships. Kurt has a great shot. He's in the Chase for the Championship and he's got nine more good races and he can definitely have a great shot at it. Same with myself here in the NASCAR Busch Series side. If we can have seven more good races we can have a shot at it. It's been great in order to have such a great relationship on and off the racetrack with my brother. We've been so close. We've had our spouts back when we were kids but I think now that we're older we're able to kind of put it all behind us and we go on and enjoy it."

WHAT WOULD IT MEAN FOR YOU WIN THE SERIES CHAMPIONSHIP? "I've always thought of it as though it would be a great accomplishment to win any title in a NASCAR series. Once you accomplish it, you know your name is in the record books forever. You never remember the first looser, you could say, who was second. Obviously, it's the NASCAR Busch Series. I'd love to be able to do it with my name as the main title of the sponsor of the series but there are other issues that come about. You've got tough competition every week and may the best man win it. It just comes down to that."

"If we were two pit stalls over in Jason Leffler and Greg Biffle's shoes, I'm sure that we'd be talking more and messing around with each other trying to figure out how to catch those guys and knock them out of the way and whatever and try to get up there. I mean, we're close. We're next to each other in the garage obviously now and our teams are messing around with each other a lot. There always pointing fingers and stuff like that and it's pretty funny sometimes. All in all, it's a great relationship that the teams have and it's fun to be able to race for a championship and not just be cutting each other's throats. We're able to talk and we're mellow about it so that's cool."

"You race week in and week out and you're getting into the rhythm of things and then you get an off week. I took this last off week and went to Las Vegas and raced a late model so I don't really take it off off but I also had two tests within the last two weeks. We go to Dover this week of course and then next week we're going to be testing at Lowe's Motor Speedway so there is never really time off but it's good in order to get seat time at another racetrack. Tests are more calmed down, more laid back because you're able to work more on your racecar and think about more than when you are here at the racetrack. Here at the racetrack, you've got to hurray up and put more changes to it. SO you've got time to think at tests. We go back to racing the rest of the year like we would any other time. It's more time off for the guys and they get to stay home on the weekends and more with family so it's good for them, too."

WHAT IS THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE YOU FACE RACING FOR THE CHAMPIONSHIP? "The biggest challenge for me is passing cars. You've got to pass cars out there to gain your points and sometimes you can't catch 'em or sometimes when you when do catch 'em it's hard to get by 'em. You're trying to get as many points as you can and it seems like every week we're finishing two spots away from each other so it's hard to gain and any spot that you can get it means a lot to you. Also, the biggest challenge is for the 8 car to get passed [smiles] so it's tough on that part, too. We've got to race the way that we've been racing all year long and just keep capping away at it. You work on it at the racetrack. The only way you can outdo each other is to work on your racecars and make 'em perform the way that you want 'em in order to drive so you can pass cars. You've got to work on comfort sometimes more than speed, like we've been doing but you've also got to work on being able to have that speed to stay up front."