Meijer 300 presented by Oreo - Kyle Busch Notes

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

KYLE BUSCH’S LAST RACE AT KENTUCKY SPEEDWAY: In his first race at Kentucky Speedway, Kyle Busch won the ARCA race on May 10, 2003, driving the No. 87 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports. Busch had celebrated his 18th birthday eight days earlier.

Q&A WITH DRIVER KYLE BUSCH:

YOU TESTED AT KENTUCKY ON JUNE 9. SINCE YOU TESTED IN THE DAY BUT WILL RACE AT NIGHT, WHAT WERE YOU ABLE TO LEARN? “When the weather cooled off, the track really got fast. As it heated up, it built a tight condition into it. Usually, it builds a loose condition, but it got tighter as the day got hotter. We kind of know how that’s going to go, and maybe going into nighttime the track will loosen up a little bit. Mainly, you just test with whatever kind of weather conditions you have at the time, and you just work from there and make changes based on the weather conditions you know are going to be coming up.”

WITH YOU AND MARTIN TRUEX, JR., BEING SO CLOSE IN THE POINTS RACE, IS THAT A LOT OF TENSION FOR YOU? “There’s definitely a lot of tension out there. Every week it seems like it always come down to the No. 8 car. It seems as though every week we’re in each other’s mirrors, and that definitely makes it tough on both of us. We don’t want him to get too big of a lead and I’m sure he doesn’t want us to get too big of a lead. (The championship battle) is definitely going to come down to the last part of the season, and I’m sure we’ll see Jason Leffler up there and David Green is coming on strong, so there’s definitely a lot of guys who still have a great chance at (winning the championship).

IS IT PRETTY EXCITING FOR YOU TO BE IN THIS TIGHT OF A POINTS RACE? “It’s exciting for all the fans and the media involved, but it’s definitely a heartache for us. It’s not much fun. I mean, it is fun, in that we’re happy to be in the points race at all, but we’d like to be leading by 300 points and not have to worry about anything. That’s always what you want, but we’ll take what we can get and if we are lucky enough to win the championship by one point, then that’s all that matters.”

DO YOU AND MARTIN TRUEX, JR., TALK MUCH? We’re real close in the garage area, obviously, since we’re parked right next to each other. We talk to each other somewhat. You know, his crew chief and my crew chief, we’re all friends within the garage area. But when it comes down to the racetrack on race day, we’re all butting heads and trying to get an edge over each other. That’s what it’s going to be about all year long, and we’re just going to try and do what we can. Hopefully, we can keep finishing in front of him and that’s all that matters. We’ll just try to keep him in our sights. It’s going to come down to the wire, there’s no doubt about that.”

Q&A WITH CREW CHIEF LANCE MCGREW

HOW DID YOUR TEST SESSION GO AT KENTUCKY ON WED., JUNE 9? “Everything went really good. We’ve got a few small things to work on at the shop, some things we want to change about the car. All in all, the setup was pretty solid and the car was pretty fast. We didn’t do any qualifying runs at all. Generally, if we get the car good on a race run, throwing a few things at it to make it qualify good just doesn’t really seem to be a big problem.”

YOU’RE BRINGING A NEW CHASSIS TO KENTUCKY. WHY IS THAT? “We’ve finally got our inventory built up on cars. We’ve been a little behind in the beginning part of the season. Now we’ve built three new cars this season, and we’re just starting to work them in.”

WHAT ARE THE CHARACTERISTICS OF KENTUCKY SPEEDWAY? “It’s just super fast. It’s kind of a weird racetrack, because it gets real bumpy and they have to go back and grind it about every year and a half. I think it has something to do with the winters in Kentucky and how it will hard freeze and then it will thaw and hard freeze and thaw like two or three times a week during the winter, instead of just freezing one time and staying frozen. The track gets very bumpy and they wind up grinding it and making it smooth again. Right now, it’s very smooth and very fast.”

CHASSIS INFORMATION- Hendrick Motorsports Chassis No. 312- Chassis No. 312 is a brand new chassis in the Hendrick Motorsports stable. Kyle Busch and the No. 5 Team Lowe’s Racing crew tested with chassis No. 312 at Kentucky Speedway last week, but it has never been driven in a race.

STATS & FUN FACTS