Kyle Busch is entering Saturday nights race looking to put himself back in the picture for a spot in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Chase. The good news for Busch is that he will be racing the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Toyota at Bristol Motor Speedway. The bad news for Busch is that the track has been modified a bit since the last time NASCAR visited the 0.533 mile track.
“I like going to Bristol. It’s always fun. What set in there to allow me to run as well as I do? I’ve got no idea. It just kind of clicked.”
Clicked it has. Busch has 5 wins in 15 starts in Thunder Valley but that’s not to say things haven’t been challenging for him.
“I think the most challenging aspect of Bristol is just how difficult it is to transition through from the straightaways to the corners, back to the straightaways and have your car set up in order to do all that. Sometimes you can be really loose getting in, or you can be really tight in the middle – you just seem to never be able to get a good-flowing car that works well there.”
Right now Busch is outside the top-ten in driver points. He is also not in a wild card spot and would miss the Chase, NASCAR’s version of a post season.
Busch is 11 points behind Ryan Newman for the second wild card spot. A win would bump him into the second wild card spot, regardless of where Newman or others such as Jeff Gordon finish.
“You go down the straightaway and you slam it into the corners and you mash the gas and you kind of sling right back out of the corners. It’s a lot of fun to do that. It’s kind of an art.”
Busch will need to paint a pretty picture on Saturday night if he wants to have any chance of making the Chase.
I think Kyle can win on any surface, just because this track has some new surface he can still get the job done. Kyle does need this win or one in the next 3 to make the chase. Without Kyle in the chase it really go be as exciting. To many vanilla drivers.