Kyle Busch seeking win No. 56 at Michigan this weekend

With a win at Pocono last weekend, Kyle Busch tied Rusty Wallace for ninth on the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series all-time wins list.

Now Busch heads to the 2-mile Michigan International Speedway looking to notch his second Cup Series win at the track. MIS has not been the fairest track to Busch who has 10 top-10 finishes in 28 career starts.

Busch won at MIS in August of 2011 and has been notched top-10 finishes in his last four starts at the track. Busch shared his commentary on MIS on his Website.

You brought home two top-five finishes at Michigan last summer. What do you expect this weekend?

“I’m not entirely sure. We’ll just go into the weekend like we always do – keep working on our car to be the best it can be in practice on Friday and hope we have a shot to get back to victory lane there. We had a lot of struggles on the repave but turned that around a bit last year. Our whole team has shown how well we’ve worked together and Adam (Stevens, crew chief) has been able to make the right calls, so I’m looking forward to seeing what he has in store for me at Michigan this weekend. I’m hoping Michigan will be at least a little bit more worn in than when we were there last August. I’m looking forward to getting out there in practice and seeing what we can learn with our M&M’S Hazelnut Spread Camry. The blue Hazelnut Spread colors seems to be good luck for us, already, so we hope we can keep that going this week, and then at Sonoma after the off weekend, as well.”

What is it about Adam Stevens that you’re able to work so well with him and how you’ve developed such good chemistry?

“When Adam and I were slated to work together on the Xfinity side, I was really excited to work with him. I knew that him and (Joey) Logano kind of had this bit of chemistry that really worked well for them, and I wasn’t sure that I would fit into the mold. He’s got a definite fire and drive to him, as well, and a passion like mine. It’s just the amount of dedication and the amount of drive that he and I both share, I think, is what makes us so strong. A lot of different guys have a lot of different ways to go about their business. I think Rodney Childers (Kevin Harvick’s crew chief) is very unique in the way he goes about his business. It’s very chill and yet they get the job done very well. Adam and myself, we tend to look pretty good sometimes at being able to do our job well, and I’ll be mad one day and he’ll be talking to me about why I’m mad, and then he’ll be mad another day and I’ll be asking him about why he’s mad. We kind of fit within each other a little bit and definitely feed off each other and push each other to continue to be stronger and be better.”

Do you expect the track surface to be worn in a little bit more this year?

“I expect it to be fast, still. There’s still a lot of grip, but I’m hoping it’s starting to get worn in like Kansas did. But if you’re just a little bit loose there, now you’re nervous that just any little bit of getting outside the groove or having a little bit too much yaw will lead to a wreck, like it has in the past. You are hauling there now in the turns, for sure, and we know that corner speeds are up overall this year at other places.”

With Father’s Day coming up next weekend, how instrumental was your father in your racing career, and who else helped you along the way to get you to where you are today?

“Obviously, my father – he’s probably number one. He and my mom just taking all of their resources and money and everything to help Kurt (Busch, brother) and I get farther along in our careers in Las Vegas through Dwarf cars, Legends cars, Modifieds, whatever it was. Modifieds was about as far as we could go as a family – that was all we could afford. Then, past that was Jerry Spilsbury – he used to own an air conditioning company back in Las Vegas and he had a Late Model team out at the speedway the year before I ran. It was a one-car team and then, the year I ran, we actually became a three-car team. So it was Jerry himself, and then another guy named Billy Newman, and then myself who raced those cars that year. I think I finished third in the championship. I missed the first two races of the year because I wasn’t 16, yet. My birthday wasn’t until May. And then I had to miss another race when I ran out of gas in Chicago in the Camping World Truck Series race that day and we tried to fly back, but we couldn’t get out because of the weather in Chicago, so we couldn’t make that race that night. So I missed three and still finished third in points. I think Billy was second. We had a good year that year, but Jerry spent a lot of money, employed my father and just allowed me to succeed in winning 10 of 15 Late Model races that year – we finished second in three, third once and broke a rear-end gear in the other one while leading. We were plenty fast and, through racing that car that year, I think a lot of people took notice that Kurt Busch’s little brother back in Vegas was pretty good, and that’s all history, now.”

John Boarman
John Boarmanhttp://www.tireball.com
Founder and Owner of Tireball Sports.

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