Mr. Goodcents 300 - Kyle Busch Notes

KYLE BUSCH
NO. 5 LOWE’S / SHOP VAC CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO
KANSAS PREVIEW

TEAM NO. 5’s HISTORY AT KANSAS SPEEDWAY: Kansas Speedway has not been kind to crew chief Lance McGrew and his No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports team. In two events, the team has finished 38th (with driver David Green in 2002) and 32nd (with driver Brian Vickers in 2003). Q&A WITH DRIVER KYLE BUSCH:

You tested at Kansas Speedway in both a Nextel Cup car and a Busch Series car, but you’ve never raced here. What are your impressions of the track, and how did those test sessions go? “It’s going to be a fun racetrack. It’s got a lot of characteristics of other tracks, like a Chicago (Chicagoland Speedway) , Las Vegas (Motor Speedway) and a Kentucky (Speedway), so we’re coming to Kansas with all three of those places in mind. Those are three tracks where we really ran well and we won Kentucky, so it gives us a lot of confidence, even with this being my first race here.

“We tried some things during our tests that worked at those other mile and a half tracks, and they seemed to work here, too. It’s a place that’s really fast, and you feel like you’re going a lot faster than you really are. It’s kind of narrow, and it’s just a lot of fun to get around here. Hopefully, we can come in here with a good handling racecar and not be too tight coming up off the corners. That was the condition we were fighting during testing in both the Busch (Series) and (Nextel) Cup Series cars.”

You said the track is narrow. How much does that affect your ability to pass cars? “It looks like it’s going to be difficult to pass here, because it is so narrow. Your opportunities to pass are the same as pretty much anywhere else, getting into the corner and coming off the corner if you can get a good run on somebody. When you’re running side by side, you’re going to run a little bit slower than you would by yourself. Since you have to run a distinct groove to run side by side, it’s going to be slower and more difficult to pass. At a place like Kentucky, you have a lot of room to really race each other two by two and you can maneuver, but Kansas is going to be a little tougher.”

You looked at some of the notes Jeff Gordon’s team has on Kansas Speedway, and you said Gordon drives the track very differently from the way you do. When you ask a veteran for advice, is it difficult for you to alter your driving habits to incorporate the advice? “With Jeff (Gordon), he really drives the car off into the corner here and uses a lot of brake, while I don’t drive it in as hard and I use very little brake.

“It’s kind of difficult sometimes (to incorporate advice you’ve received), because when you jump out of what you’re doing to try something else, you have to change the car’s setup. You can do a number of things differently to the car and try to build into something that’s comfortable for you, or you can just try a couple of things (another driver) has done to try and come up with a mixture of his and your setups to try to make something work. Sometimes it’s difficult, but other times you can find something that works for you just by testing another line.”

You’ve got seven races to gain 152 points on Truex, Jr., which is definitely an achievable goal. “It’s definitely achievable. All we need is to be on top of our game from here on out, and we need the (No.) 8 car to have one or two bad races and we’re right back in it. It’s definitely frustrating when you can finish third and he finishes fifth, or when you win and he finishes third. It’s very hard to gain any points when that happens. This past race, he won and we finished ninth, so that sure didn’t help us any.

“We just have to keep digging at it and see what we can get. Obviously, they’re a really strong team and they’ve won a championship before, a couple of years ago, two in a row with Dale (Earnhardt) Jr. We’re going to go after it wide open, and hopefully we can get it like Brian Vickers did last year. It doesn’t matter if you win it by one point or 100 points.” CHASSIS INFORMATION- Hendrick Motorsports Chassis No. 318- Chassis No. 318 is new to the Hendrick Motorsports stable in 2004. The only time this car has been on a racetrack is when Kyle Busch and the Team Lowe’s Racing crew tested with this chassis at Kansas Speedway two weeks ago.

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