Charter 250 - Kyle Busch Notes

KYLE BUSCH
NO. 5 LOWE’S CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO
GATEWAY PREVIEW

Q&A WITH DRIVER KYLE BUSCH:

HOW WAS YOUR TEST SESSION AT GATEWAY ON APRIL 13-14: “Everything went fairly well. The first day, we were kind out in left field as far as our setup, but we slowly made adjustments and made notes of what worked and what didn’t, and we were able to get ourselves pretty good by the end of the second day.

“They ground the track and put a new sealer on it, and I guess we were the first team to get to try it out. When we first got out there, the car had no grip. The front wouldn’t turn and the rear wouldn’t bite, but that had to do with our setup and the fact that the track had no rubber on it. Once we got our setup closer to what we needed and we got some rubber on the track, everything was cool.”

YOU’RE DRIVING A NEW CAR THIS WEEKEND. DOES EACH CAR HAVE ITS OWN PERSONALITY, OR ARE THEY PRETTY MUCH THE SAME? “So far, all cars have been pretty much the same. Hendrick builds them all the same, and we try to hang the bodies the same, but we might get a little more rear or front downforce, depending on how they were bondo’ed or painted. We’ve been really lucky in having that happen this year. It’s easy to go the racetrack knowing what kind of car you’re going to have, and if you do wreck one like we did last weekend, you know your backup car is going to be plenty good.”

BRIAN VICKERS FINISHED FOURTH AT GATEWAY LAST YEAR. DID YOU ASK HIM FOR ANY ADVICE ON HOW TO GET AROUND THIS PLACE? “I talked to him a little bit about the track when we tested here, just throwing ideas at him here and there. It’s good to get any kind of information you can when you get to a new racetrack, so it definitely helped out while we were here testing.”

ARE YOU WHERE YOU EXPECTED TO BE (SECOND IN POINTS) AT THIS POINT OF THE SEASON? “We’re pretty happy with where we are right now. We keep scoring top-five’s and top-10’s, but they’re not the finishes that we want. Earlier in the year, when we weren’t getting these finishes, we wanted top-fives and top-10’s. Now that we have top-fives and top-10’s, we want wins. Now that we had a seventh-place finish at California, I feel like we should have finished third. We’re where we want to be, 52 points out of the lead, but we ask ourselves why we’re not leading the points by 150. Unless you’re sitting on the pole and winning every race, I don’t think you’re ever completely satisfied with where you are.”

Q & A WITH CREW CHIEF LANCE McGREW

HOW DO YOU FEEL YOUR GATEWAY TEST SESSION WENT? “I feel pretty comfortable. Kyle was pretty happy with the car, and the lap times showed us as being pretty quick, and that’s about all you can ask for. If he’s happy and the lap times are pretty good, then I feel like it’s a pretty good test.”

DO YOU THINK THE WORK DONE TO THE RACING SURFACE IS A POSITIVE? “It’s going to be kind of hard to tell until you get more cars running on it. It was kind of slick during our test and I feel like, once we get some rubber down on it, it’s going to be better. With only one or two cars there (during the test session), for us it was kind of hard to tell. I think that when enough tire is deposited on the racetrack, it’s definitely going to be different than it has been in the past. I’m hoping that there’s going to be more grip.”

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT RACES WHERE ALL ON TRACK ACTIVITY HAPPENS ON THE SAME DAY? “I like them. I think everybody likes them. It’s easier on the guys. You concentrate more on your race setup, which we generally do anyway, more than your qualifying setup. It kind of brings you back to a regular old Saturday night race like everybody did growing up, where you basically practice, qualify and race all on the same day. That, to me, is fun. That’s how I grew up racing and when we get to do that, I enjoy it.”

THE NO. 5 TEAM FINISHED FOURTH HERE WITH BRIAN VICKERS LAST YEAR. WHAT DO YOU REMEMBER ABOUT THAT RACE? “It was kind of a turning point to our season last year. We really started putting together some strong finishes after that. It seems like we started putting together top-five performances and finishing in the top-five where, before that, we’d run in the top-five and something would happen and we wouldn’t finish there.”

STATS & FUN FACTS

CHASSIS INFORMATION- Hendrick Motorsports Chassis No. 298- Chassis No. 298 is a brand new car. The team tested with this car at Gateway International Raceway last month, but that is the only time this chassis has been on a racetrack.

DID YOU KNOW? –