KURT BUSCH (No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Avenger)

COMMENT ON KASAY KAHNE DRIVING FOR BUDWEISER “Things develop over time and I think people are selective to change when things take time to develop. The way Rusty Wallace led Miller Lite for so many years. Not one guy is going to replace Rusty with the same impact Rusty had developed with the Miller Brewing Company the past 20 years.The same thing falls into place with Dale Jr.leading that other beer company as long as he did, I think since the turn of the century, so it’s going to take Kasey some time to develop into that guy and the fans to look at him as that guy. I think in time it will balance out. He definitely is one of those quiet shy guys.with probably the loudest sponsors there is. It looks a bit different than my situation but winning races and running for championships that’s what people want to see and ultimately that’s what ‘s more important.”

IS THERE AN ADVANTAGE NOT HAVING A TEAMMATE IN THE CHASE?“I look at it as an advantage. If you have a bunch of teammates and they are all gunning for the same thing and that’s the championship everyone is going to run their basic setup and there’s not a program within the group for research and development in 2008. That’s where we have Ryan Newman developing completely different setups, trying to gather as much information as we can in a race atmosphere. We also have Sam Hornish Jr. running some races, trying to get some starts. Hopefully he’s going do that this weekend so it’s good we can gather round some information. Even out on a short track or even at Talledega drafting having a partner that’s pushing you and they’re only worried your finish”

HOW MUCH DID LAST WEEK HURT? “It was a bummer that was had carburetor failure to where it only allowed the front half of the carburetor to open up. Basically we ran with a two-barrel instead of a four-barrel. We were running in the top three at the time son that was a good change when we were back there in July. We made advancement with the Miller Lite Dodge It could have been worse. It could have been a lot worse. To finish 25th with that problem we feel like we Dodged a bigger problem and that would have been 40th or so with everybody running at the end, so it’s definitely a tough hit. We’re only 100 points behind and we’ve been in bigger holes this year.”

HOW’S TEAM MORALE? “No panic issue. We just hope we do better at The Monster Mile this weekend. We could use a break here and there, but you can’t count on breaks. If we keep doing what we’ve been doing we’ll be all right.”

Kasey Kahne (No. 9 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge Avenger)

HAVE YOU LOST SOME MOMENTUM AFTER THE LOUDON FINISH AFTER COMING OF THREE CONSECUTIVE TOP 10s? “No. We have the same amount as what we had. It’s just a matter of getting the cars to drive as good as we can. Then go from there. But we didn’t lose any momentum. I think if anything we gained momentum this week with our announcement and the teams and the employees all being pretty excited about it.”

IS YOUR CAR THIS WEEKEND LIKE THE CAR IN THE DOVER SPRING RACE? “It’s the same car. Just the setup is a little bit different, not much. We are just going to work on it and hopefully get it good. It’s the same car we ran good with at Bristol so I think we can run pretty good here.”

ON THE NO. 9 TEAM’S GOALS FOR THE REST OF THE SEASON “The only thing I want to accomplish is to feel like we’re going in the right direction. To feel like we’re making gains on the car and on our results. If we can do that I think we’ll have a good start to 2008. That is the biggest thing to feel like we’re going in the right direction. If we can get a win that would be huge. A win is a big deal.

“Everybody is still working just as hard. Everybody is trying just as hard to get everything figured out. Ray (Evernham) is more involved but as far as the cars handling any different, I haven’t noticed anything there yet.”

ON BEING A NEW UNCLE THIS WEEK “It’s exciting. It was really cool to be there yesterday. She (sister, Shannon) had the first one (baby) out of me and her and my brother. So it’s cool, I’m an uncle. He was a perfect 8 pounds 15 ounces, just a perfect little boy. It was pretty exciting. I can’t wait to get home on Sunday night and hang out with them when they’re out of the hospital.”

Elliott Sadler (No.19 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge Avenger)

ON OWNER GEORGE GILLETT “George is amazing. I have hung out with him a bunch over the last couple months. His charisma and character and just the kind of person he is you understand why he’s got what he’s got and why he is as successful as he is. I just like how he is on the same level as us. He is a laid back guy and understands hard work and understands what we are trying to do. He is coming in here as a race fan and as a gear head. He wants to give us the things we need to be successful as a race team. He wants to race on Sunday. I haven’t heard anything about the bottom line or making money. I think he is going to be great for our company and I’m looking forward to working with him.

“He wants to learn everything he can about the race car and he was telling me stories about when he used to race. That is when I knew we were in good hands.”

ON HIS DODGE SPONSORSHIP “I have never shared a sponsor with anybody. So this has been new for me to share a sponsor with Kasey this year. Dodge uses both (cars) very well and takes care of both of us very well. It’s actually been pretty fun to have team cars like that. With Kasey moving on if we’re the Dodge Dealers one car then that’s fine. I’m used to having one sponsor and being the main guy. So that will be fine if it happens that way.”

IS THERE ANY ADDED PRESSURE TO PERFORM AT THIS DODGE SPONSORED RACE “We want to run good. That is what we were just talking about right now and having meetings about. We have been qualifying really well we just haven’t been racing the way we want to. We will just keep making changes, keep making gains and hopefully we’ll hit on one.”

ON DOVER INT’L SPEEDWAY AND DODGE DEALERS 400 “Well you want to be fast. Dover is a cool racetrack, you can run on the bottom, you can run on the top or in the middle. It gives us a lot of opportunity. It all depends on what my car is doing as to where I want to be on the racetrack. It is a fun track it can bite you in a hurry. It is not called ‘the monster mile’ by mistake. It’s a pretty tricky racetrack and you have to leave yourself some room on exit. It’s a fun place to race I really enjoy it and it is one of my favorite track to race at.”

ON QUALIFYING STRONG BUT NOT HAVING THE FINISHES THEY’RE LOOKING FOR “Fridays have been good for us and Sundays have been bad. We have to figure out how to use that speed from Friday and translate it to the race on Sunday. It would make it a whole lot better weekend then what we have been having.”