Aaron's 312 - Kyle Busch Notes

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

Q&A WITH DRIVER KYLE BUSCH:

DO YOU ENJOY RESTRICTOR-PLATE RACING?: “No, not really. To me, there’s no driver involved, it’s just car. The more streamlined you can make your car, the faster you’re going to be in qualifying. It does come down to the driver during the race, but all you do is hold the pedal to the floor, so you’re just depending on the draft to suck you forward and try to pass cars. You can’t get through the corners any better than them, because you’ve already got your foot to the floor. So, it’s not really a driver’s race, it’s a car’s race.”

WHAT’S THE TOUGHEST PART OF RESTRICTOR-PLATE RACING?: “Trying to think of passes and how they’re going to work out, and if you make the pass, what it’s going to do to you in five laps or so. It’s a chess game, and every move you make you wonder how other guys are going to react to that move. Obviously, Dale Jr.’s the man as far as trying to figure out how to get Checkmate. He’s the master at it.”

AT DAYTONA, SOME VETERAN DRIVERS DIDN’T SEEM TO WANT TO DRAFT WITH YOU AT TIMES. HOW FRUSTRATING IS THAT? “It’s very frustrating, because you know your capabilities, but everybody else doesn’t really trust your capabilities. All the Cup guys, they don’t really want to play around and draft with the rookie Busch guys. The only guy that I really had to help me all day was Jason Leffler, and then there were some other guys I could help out, like David Stremme.”

WITH FOUR TOP-10 FINISHES, DO YOU THINK YOU’VE GAINED SOME RESPECT FROM THE VETERANS, AND THEY MIGHT BE MORE WILLING TO DRAFT WITH YOU NOW? “The respect level you gain at intermediate length tracks definitely helps you at intermediate tracks, but the respect you gain on superspeedways only sticks to superspeedways. I think that how they race around you and how they race with you on superspeedways dictates whether or not they’re going to draft with you.”

SO, ARE YOU BASICALLY BACK AT SQUARE ONE WITH THE VETERANS AT TALLADEGA? “Yeah, basically. We do have the Daytona race under our belt with those guys, and we were able to run up front, so that helps. We didn’t get ourselves in any bad situations and we didn’t get caught up in anything. We were able to miss a few of the big wrecks, so that hopefully showed that not only can I hang with some of the big dogs, but when they did hang me out to dry, I was able to find my way back to the front.”

Q &A WITH CREW CHIEF LANCE McGREW

WHAT CHANGES HAVE YOU MADE TO THIS CAR SINCE DAYTONA (Team No. 5 is bringing chassis No. 22, the same car Kyle Busch drove at the Busch race in Daytona in February)? ”Well, we put a new body on it. We had a lot of sheet metal work to do after Daytona, because we got in a few scuffles during the race, but I think this new body is going to be a lot better. We made quite a bit of changes to help Kyle in bump-drafting, too. Basically, we’ve got a little bit better arrangement on the front grille and bumper area, because it’s just so rough out there during the race. That’s what happened to us at Daytona. We got to bump-drafting and leaning on the guy ahead of us, and the guy behind us ran into us hard enough to where it knocked all the ductwork loose in the car, which is the only way the radiator gets air. The car overheated, and we wound up having a shorter day than we wanted.”

ARE YOU HAPPY WITH THE PACKAGE NASCAR PRESENTLY USES FOR THE BUSCH CARS AT THE RESTRICTOR PLATE TRACKS? I’d kind of like to see something between where we were and the package we have now. I think that with both the roof strips and the spoilers like they are now, the rate at which one car can close on another is a little bit too high, and anybody can draft with anybody else. That might not necessarily be what you want.

WHAT WOULD YOU SUGGEST TO MAKE THE PACKAGE BETTER? “Maybe just have the spoiler, or maybe just the roof strips, or maybe the roof strips and the spoilers, but have the spoiler at 65 degrees instead of 70, with a smaller wicker. I’d like to see it where you still have closure rate, and you’d still be able to catch back up if you happen to lose the draft, but the 43rd-place car can’t necessarily draft up to the leader. The way it is now, I think the package allows some slower cars to hang with the faster cars, which is not necessarily a good thing.”

WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE THE BUSCH CARS RACE TWICE AT TALLADEGA EVERY YEAR? “No. I don’t enjoy restrictor-plate racing, just because if you finish the race, you’re lucky. The best car, the best-handling car, the best driver doesn’t always run up front, and even if you do, it doesn’t guarantee you won’t end up in a big accident that was beyond your control to start with. I don’t particularly care for that type of racing. I’d rather go to Richmond (International Raceway), to be honest.”

STATS & FUN FACTS