Federated Auto Parts 300 - Kyle Busch Notes

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

LAST RACE AT NASHVILLE: With two laps remaining in the April 10 race at Nashville Superspeedway, Kyle Busch and Clint Bowyer were battling for the lead. Bowyer and Busch made contact, sending both drivers spinning into the infield grass. Johnny Benson and Robby Gordon, running third and fourth at the time, were also collected in the accident. Bowyer, a Raybestos Rookie, was credited with a fourth-place finish, while Busch finished sixth. Bowyer was named the Raybestos Rookie of the Race. Ironically, this marks the only time Busch has not won that honor this season.

Q&A WITH DRIVER KYLE BUSCH:

YOU WON AT NASHVILLE IN YOUR ARCA DEBUT, AND YOU CAME CLOSE TO WINNING IN APRIL. HOW DISAPPOINTED WERE YOU NOT TO GET THE WIN? “I was pretty frustrated at the time, but Lance (crew chief Lance McGrew) came over the radio and put things in perspective. He just said, ‘Hey, we got a top-10 finish out of the deal and got a lot of points,’ and that the other guy was just doing everything he could to try and win the race. He said he would have expected me to do the same thing if I was in the same situation, and it’s hard to argue with that. Still, I wasn’t happy about it, and I really hope we don’t see a repeat of it this time around.”

YOU HAD WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN A VERY BAD DAY IN DOVER, BUT YOU MANAGED A TOP-FIVE FINISH. WHAT DO YOU TAKE AWAY FROM THAT? “Well, it gives me a lot of confidence in my team and how they respond to a negative situation. I mean, I’ve known all along that they’re a championship-caliber team, because obviously they’ve won a championship, but they really stepped it up in Dover and turned around what could have been a horrible day. They just don’t give up, and that’s what it’s going to take to stay in the hunt for the championship. Hopefully, we don’t ever have another day like that, but if we do, I know we’ll still end up with a good finish if we keep our heads together and keep digging like we did that day.”

DO YOU FEEL LIKE NASHVILLE “OWES YOU ONE” AFTER NEARLY WINNING THE APRIL RACE? “I still want another guitar, that’s for sure. I mean, the No. 21 car was dominant all day, but we all know that the best car doesn’t always win. Had we not gotten wrecked, yeah, I’m confident that we would have won that race, but you can ‘woulda, coulda, shoulda’ all day long. I know that I’m really looking forward to getting back there and continuing our streak of top-10 finishes, and if the breaks fall our way, I think we’ve got a very good shot of bringing home a guitar.”

Q&A WITH CREW CHIEF LANCE MCGREW

YOU HAD A CHANCE TO WIN HERE IN APRIL, BUT A WRECK LEFT YOU WITH A SIXTH-PLACE FINISH. YOU SEEMED TO TAKE THAT ACCIDENT IN STRIDE. HOW WERE YOU ABLE TO DO THAT? “That was just hard racing. If I were (Bowyer’s) crew chief, I’d have expected him to do the exact same thing. If Kyle had been in (Bowyer’s) position, I’d have expected him to do the exact same thing. We had a great shot at the win, but we ended up with a top-10 finish and had a good day in the points standings, so it’s hard to be too upset."

“Kyle did everything he was supposed to do at the end of that race. That was only (Bowyer’s) second Busch race ever. (Bowyer) definitely had a good racecar, he just didn’t have the patience he needed to finish out the race.

ARE YOU GOING BACK WITH THE SAME SETUP UNDER THE CAR AS YOU DID IN APRIL? “We’re kind of changing the setup a fair bit, because I really feel like the No. 8 car was the class of the field until he wrecked his car in happy hour. Nobody was even in the same league as him, so you know when we go back, he’ll be just as good. I feel like we had to make some changes to get better. We were good enough to win the race at the end of that race, but throughout the race, I didn’t feel like we were as good as we needed to be. So, we’re changing some things up. We have some things we’ve kind of incorporated the last three or four weeks and we feel like we’ve got a pretty good handle on, and everything’s going pretty good right now, so we’re going to kind of adjust our setup to something we’re a little more familiar with the last few weeks.”

CHASSIS INFORMATION- Hendrick Motorsports Chassis No. 273- Chassis No. 273 is the same car Kyle Busch drove to a sixth-place finish in the April event at Nashville Superspeedway, and to the win at Richmond International Raceway in May. Brian Vickers drove this chassis to two top-10 finishes at Nashville Superspeedway last season, and to a win at Indianapolis Raceway Park in August of last year.

STATS & FUN FACTS

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