UAW-Ford 500 - Kyle Busch Raybestos Rookie Notes

RAYBESTOS® ROOKIE CONTENDER FEATURE FOR THE OCTOBER 2 UAW-FORD 500 NASCAR NEXTEL CUP SERIES RACE AT TALLADEGA SUPERSPEEDWAY.

Raybestos Rookie Kyle Busch gives his thoughts on racing at Talladega, the line between racing hard and being too aggressive, and earning respect.

Busch’s crew chief, Alan Gustafson, discusses recent personnel changes at Hendrick Motorsports, his first season as a crew chief in NEXTEL Cup, is an engineering degree a requirement for a crew chief and what he thinks would be a fair testing policy for Raybestos Rookies in 2006.

KYLE BUSCH, No. 5 KELLOGG’S CHEVROLET: IS THERE SUCH A THING AS STRATEGY AT TALLADEGA? “No, because the strategy that I had in the spring backfired. I rode in the back pretty much the whole race and thought with about 35, 45 to go ‘Alright, it’s about time to go.’ I was trying to work my way up to the front and as soon as I up to about mid-pack on my way up there, the big wreck happened. It doesn’t make a difference there. I’m just looking forward to being able to go there with a really good racecar. The guys have worked hard and built something similar to what the 24 and 48 have had here of late so if we can qualify somewhere up front and have a good racecar maybe somebody will help me out and stay up there.”

THIS IS THE FINAL RESTRICTOR PLATE RACE OF THE YEAR. WOULD IT BE A REWARD FOR GOOD BEHAVIOR IF YOU HAVE OTHER DRIVERS WILLING TO DRAFT WITH YOU? “Yeah, you can say that. I think it will be better but I think with that yellow stripe that won’t play with you until maybe next year. I think the Bud Shootout is going to be a big deal for me, being able to earn the respect of some of those guys that are going to be in that race. Daytona next year is going to be a big deal for us, getting into the 125s and then to the 500. It’s going to be important to have them help me out a little bit in the Shootout.”

HOW DO YOU RACE WHEN NOBODY WILL DRAFT WITH YOU? “That’s the point. It’s real hard. Anytime I got up and started making some moves somebody would blow my rear bumper and they’d go somewhere else. It’s real tough in that respect. That’s why every time I got up front I’d get blown to the back so finally I stayed at the back. I said the heck with it. If I’m going to stay back here if I’m going to keep coming back here, instead of wasting my time trying to get back up there in the middle part of the race and put myself in danger getting a fender cut off or something like that with somebody. It makes it easier to stay in the back. I’m hoping we don’t go 4 for 4 this year of writing off restrictor plate cars. I’m sure it hasn’t been fun for the guys trying to put them back together.”

AS A DRIVER, YOU MUST BE AGGRESSIVE BUT YOU STILL HAVE TO RACE CLEAN. HOW DO YOU FIND THE LINE BETWEEN RACING HARD AND BEING TOO AGGRESSIVE? “I was trying to pass Kasey [Kahne, at New Hampshire Sept. 18] there and never had the thought of wrecking a Ray Evernham car, ever. I’ve got the up most respect for him and Kasey for what he was able to do last year as a Raybestos® Rookie. I got into him a little bit and it was just enough to where he was gone. He backed it into the fence pretty good and then he had his retaliation. It’s one of those deals where we’re trying to pass. Tony Stewart made it easy and on the TV I heard him say ‘It’s not hard to pass here.’ Well, Tony Stewart had the best car there. Ryan Newman had the best car there. You probably saw the most passing up front because everybody had a good car. You go back in the pack and everybody is racing their hearts off just to get to 20th place and we don’t have the cars that we can pass very well with. It’s just a tough deal there to get the grip that you need underneath somebody. When you do that, everybody is trying to diamond the corner. They’ll be tight in the center so they’ll go into the corner as hard as they can, they’ll run up in the center and then they’ll turn it and come back down and they’ll be right tight on you. And coming up off the corner when the guy is on the bottom you can’t do that. You run the corner more round than the guy on the top that diamonds the place. It’s real tough in order to pass somebody that way when they are trying to crowd you coming up off the corner. I guess Kasey was trying to pass the 2 and I didn’t know that he was looking underneath the 2 to try and pass him. He did that diamond deal where I was just rounding the corner and we connected. It’s just one of those deals where if you have a Tony Stewart car anybody can pass anybody.”

DOES RUNNING WELL AND RUNNING AT THE FRONT HELP YOU EARN RESPECT? “It’s kind of weird because I’ve never seen anything different from anybody. I’ve come into this sport at a young age where maybe some guys might not like that. And I’ve seen those guys race me on the racetrack that way, where they don’t like me passing them or whatever. Other guys, they really don’t care and they’ll race you and they know they need to race you because that’s just their mentality. Sometimes when you win a race, and I’ve noticed this in the last couple of weeks, a couple of those guys that I never had a problem with or never thought I did, now I have a problem with because they see that I can win a race and now they’re going to crowd me and hold me back a little bit because I’ve had such good racecars with these guys that we can drive and run up front and win races. I think everybody is pretty much just going to have the attitude as though way young being here and being too successful at the same time so it’s not right, but whatever.”

IS THAT JUST PART OF THE GAME? “Part of the game. You just deal with it and kick their butt. That’s the best way to put it to ‘em [smiles].

ALAN GUSTAFSON, CREW CHIEF, No. 5 KELLOGG’S CHEVROLET: WITH THE RECENT ADDITION OF STEVE LETARTE AS JEFF GORDON’S CREW CHIEF, HAVE YOU NOTICED ANYTHING DIFFERENT IN THE WAY THE THREE CREW CHIEFS AT HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS WORK TOGETHER? “There’s not really a lot of drastic changes. Steve has been there for 10 years so. He’s been around. He was in a car chief position and he was more than your average car chief. He was involved in a lot of those decisions so no, there’s not a lot of big changes. Robbie [Loomis] is a great guy. You hate to lose a Robbie Loomis no matter who you are or what capacity he works for you. Robbie is always smiling and Robbie’s always laughing and Robbie’s always got a good perspective. That’s probably the biggest thing that I’ll miss personally is just not having Robbie there to talk to about the little things.”

HAS YOUR FIRST YEAR AS A CREW CHIEF BEEN AS DIFFICULT AS YOU THOUGHT IT WAS GOING TO BE? “It’s been as hard, maybe a little bit harder than I thought it was going to be. I know how competitive the sport is and how good your cars have to be. That’s not a surprise because I’ve worked that side of it for so long I knew, technically, how good your cars have to be and I knew what a challenge that is. The other side, the personnel changes, the personnel in your shop, the highs and lows of the pit crew, highs and lows of the shop personnel, that’s tough. That’s a hard thing to deal with. It takes a lot of your time and takes a lot of energy out of you to be a manager and a team psychologist all at the same time. So that side of it has been tougher.”

AT THIS POINT OF THE SEASON, HOW DO YOU KEEP YOUR GUYS FRESH AND MOTOVATED? “I think the first thing that you’ve got to do is lead by example. You’ve got to put in the hours, you’ve got to pull yourself up from your bootstraps when it’s tough. You’ve got to do that and then they will kind of feed off that. The big thing is, and it’s this way in this sport and every sport, I think is unity. If you have that team unity, if they believe in me, if they believe in Kyle, if they believe in each other, they believe in what we can do. It doesn’t matter if you race 365 days a year, you’re doing it for the right reasons. And I’m fortunate enough to have a team that’s that way. We do this because we love the sport and we love to be competitive and we love to win. As long as we keep focused on that, then the rest of it, it’s growing and you pay for it, but the rest of it kind of comes easy.”

HAS SCHEDULING BEEN DIFFICULT? “It’s difficult. The biggest thing I try to do is if I have any opportunity, you take your opportunities because there are going to be times where I’m going to ask these guys and we’re currently in one of those stretches that go three weeks straight, non-stop. So when I get the chance, if it’s two hours, one afternoon, if it’s a day or two days you say ‘Hey, go on’ and they know that. I think that’s why if I do ask them to go about the call of duty, they don’t complain because they know ‘Hey, I’ll get it back’ so that works out well.”

DO YOU HAVE TO BE AN ENGINEER TO BE A CREW CHIEF? CAN YOU WORK ON A RACECAR AT A SHORT TRACK AND WORK YOUR WAY UP TO THIS LEVEL? “I think it all comes down to determination. If that’s something that you want to do, then no one can stop you from doing it. There’s quicker paths. Chad [Knaus] is a very successful crew chief and he’s taken a different path than me and he’s made it and done very well. Matt Borland is similar to me but then you’ve got Greg Zipadelli who is different from him. Everybody has kind of got their own way to get there, but the common thread of all these guys is they are very determined. They knew what they wanted to do and they knew it was the sacrifice they were going to have to pay to get there. I don’t think there is any set way. When I look at a guy to hire, I don’t look and say ‘Have you gone to an Ivy League school or GMI?’ You can see in their eyes and when you talk to them how determined they are to make it work. I don’t think I’m one of the smartest guys and some of my best producers on my team aren’t necessarily the most intelligent guys. They are the hardest working guys. They are the guys who want it the worst.”

FOR AN ENGINEER, HOW BIG OF A CHALLENGE IS THE “DEALING WITH PEOPLE” ASPECT OF THE JOB? THAT SEEMS TO BE A VERY CHALLENGING PART OF THE JOB. “It is. It’s very difficult. That’s why I think you’ll see the guys who are very intelligent but there are a lot of guys whose IQs are a lot better than mine or Chad’s or whoever, who could handle that racing side of it very well. You’re nothing without your guys. You can be the smartest chassis engineer or smartest aerodynamicists or smartest anything, but if you don’t have those guys full 100 percent support, you’re not going to get it done. That’s the key. You’ve got to have a good balance and a good blend. I try to work hard keeping up on the technical side of it but I also work hard on the rapport with the guys.”

IN YOUR OPINION, WHAT WOULD BE A FAIR TESTING POLICY IN 2006 FOR RAYBESTOS ROOKIE DRIVERS? “I heard, just word of mouth, that they [Raybestos Rookies] get the six test dates plus two, so they get eight. I don’t know if it’s at tracks they choose or what. Kyle Busch is going to adapt to a track better than anybody, or as good as anybody who has been or will be, and he had to have time at road courses. If you’re a young kid and you don’t get to run there, I saw how he had to adapt. There’s not going to be as many as good as him and they’re going to have a hard time.”

THEN HOW DO YOU PREPARE THEM TO COMPETE AT TRACKS THEY’VE NEVER SEEN BEFORE? “It’s tough. I think it’s a disadvantage. I don’t think it’s fair for them, I really don’t. I think they should have the opportunity to work on the places that they want to work on. It’s going to make better racing for everybody. I don’t think it’s necessarily that big of an advantage for them [Raybestos Rookie drivers]. Kyle has had the opportunity to realistically to win three or four races. I don’t know if that’s good or not. I don’t know how they [NASCAR] see that. I do know that we got 12 tests and that’s definitely an easier road for us than it will be for those guys in the future.”