Q&A with Kurt Busch
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| Kurt Busch |
KURT BUSCH, NO. 41 HAAS AUTOMATION CHEVROLET SS, met with member of the media at Media Day at Daytona International Speedway. Full Transcript:
Q. Of 43 people, how many of those actually have a chance to win the race?
KURT BUSCH: The Daytona 500? 43. It's a roulette wheel, it really is. Daytona, Talladega, it's unique teaching people that don't know a lot about NASCAR and how different Daytona and Talladega really are, and yet so much preparation goes into these cars. I mean, they're beautiful cars with the most man-hours put into them, and some teams are electing not even to run the Unlimited because they know they're going to destroy a car. Wow, what do we do with restrictor plate racing? It's just that different, the way the racing is. There's strategy, there's drafting. A lot of it is luck, being in the right place at the right time.
So I honestly believe if you're in the Daytona 500 and 50 cars tried to make their way in, those 43 are competitive and they deserve the right to be in the race because they raced their way in, and they've got a shot at winning.
Talladega last fall, the 17 car didn't make the race. Heck, the 17 car could have won the race.
Q. Tony said earlier today that the organization had to make a contingency plan. They're hopeful they don't have to put anything into place. I guess the challenges or frustration that this has kind of gone as long as it has and having to deal with that, how does that impact you?
KURT BUSCH: I mean, the days in court and now that we're going close to day 100 as far as all the proceedings go, normal situations that happen around these types of situations take 30 minutes. So sometimes preferential treatment can go the wrong way.
Q. What do you mean by that?
[adinserter name="GOOGLE AD"]KURT BUSCH: Normal situations like this take 30 minutes, so we're going close to day 100, so we all have to be patient. We all have to understand that there's a process that we have to respect, and the fact that no announcement has come out, each day that goes by continues to be good news, and with the team and their support, they've been fantastic, Gene Haas especially, it's amazing to have the comfort level that I have as well as to have told them the truth and understanding of everything. It's easy to be here and be pumped up about the season that's 10 days away.
Q. Do you feel at peace? Do you feel like you're going to be able to race and be okay?
KURT BUSCH: Yeah, I feel like it's full throttle, full steam ahead.
Q. Are you indicating she's getting preferential treatment; is that what you were saying?
KURT BUSCH: Normal situations like this I've been told take 30 minutes, so mine is four court days and 100 days of waiting.
Q. What's the waiting deadline for you? How do you deal with it?
KURT BUSCH: Well, it's a matter of just knowing that the truth has been told, and we'll see how things unfold. The process, we have to wait on what their decision is going to be.
Q. Heard anything new on Indy?
KURT BUSCH: I haven't talked much about Indy due to all the other extracurricular fun, so I would say that last year I remember going through Speedweeks and talking to Andretti, and once we finally arrived at the turning point of going ahead with it, it was more towards the first of March, which gives him enough time to round up the certain employees and team members and all of the support that goes along with running the Indy 500. We'll see how that goes.
Q. And then it would be the Chili Bowl would be your next
KURT BUSCH: Yeah, I really enjoyed myself at the Chili Bowl. I mean, the experience of watching those midgets in an indoor track, the atmosphere with the people, the crowd, the action there never stopped, and so I was like, man, I want to get out there and be part of that.
Q. What kind of season are you expecting from Tony? He's had quite a year and a half or so.
KURT BUSCH: Yeah, I know Tony wants to attack 2015 harder than he's attacked any season before, and he's as hungry as ever. He hasn't won the Daytona 500. I would almost hate for the fact of it coming down to Tony or myself for the win here at Daytona. I mean, I'm driving a Haas Automation Chevrolet. That's my No. 1 job. No. 2, though, it's Gene Haas and it's Tony Stewart. I love Tony and the whole group of people there, but I already pushed a teammate to win the Daytona 500 once before, so I want to go and get my own.
But this race, there's so much that can happen, so much that goes on, we'll worry about that with five to go if it's in place.
Q. Were you able to put yourself in his place at all last year?
KURT BUSCH: You know, Tony went through some tough spots. I've been through some tough spots. It's about persevering and pushing hard and believing in the people around you and having a good support system. So I feel blessed to have Stewart's situational things happen and yet the support that's been there, and Gene Haas, everybody has been wonderful.
Q. (Inaudible.)
KURT BUSCH: There's been clarity of what will happen when if something happens, and it's easy to understand.
Q. (Inaudible.)
KURT BUSCH: I feel like we have to wait for the decision from up in Dover, Delaware.
Q. Do you have any sense of when this could be resolved?
KURT BUSCH: It should have been done within 30 minutes of everything coming to place in Dover, but no, I have no indication when it'll be done.
Q. Do you expect to get along with Tony Gibson?
KURT BUSCH: Is that a racing question? Wow. Tony Gibson is great, old school crew chief that I really enjoyed racing with the last three races of last year. We posted 8.6 as our average finish. That's the numbers that it takes to be competitive in the Chase. And so we hope to build on that.
And during the off season with no testing, you know, you have to work on things to continue to develop, so whether it's been aero, whether it's been chassis design, pit crew things, Tony Gibson is involved in all areas, and it's very easy to communicate with him because of his old school nature and the crew members he has around him. Gibson reminds me a lot of Jimmy Fennig, and I feel like 2015 is the same positioning I was in when I had Jimmy Fennig running the show at Roush Racing years ago.
Q. (Inaudible.)
KURT BUSCH: I felt like we were always behind the 8 ball on whether it was a shock adjustment or if it was a camber adjustment or something with the aero. It just felt like we were one step behind, and that's a matter of the people within your own car number sorting through, and so it's not reacting to the situation, it's being ahead of it, and so it's like we were just one little step behind because we had plenty of speed, but we never translated that into those wins.
And for them, they had the speed everywhere they went, and once they got the pit crew stuff ironed out, they were off and running. So it all comes down to people.
Q. What did you learn at the tire test in Las Vegas?
KURT BUSCH: The Goodyear testing was unique this year with them controlling the test using the teams to run laps and to decide what tires we were going to run. Got to feel the car with less horsepower. That was good. Got to feel the car with less downforce. That was good. All along, helping Goodyear decide which tire would be the best for competition purposes and to get the cars closer together side by side, better quality tires, and so it was really run by Goodyear, and that was the first time that I had been to a test session where they controlled that much of it, and I'm interested to see how that goes moving forward with the other tire tests that other teams are going to do for them. So I think it's a great equalizer, to have Goodyear control the teams and the teams help NASCAR decide what tires we need to be racing on.
Q. How important is it to win early in the season, having been through this Chase format once? How much pressure does that alleviate?
KURT BUSCH: It seems like it creates less stress in the environment for the team. There can be more of a focus on gathering data at other races. But that's not what Gene Haas wants me to do. We want to go out there and try to win every week. So the Chase is one thing, going out there and collecting hardware is Gene's sarcastic tone of let's go out there and kick butt and grab trophies every week. But there is the nice satisfaction feeling that we enjoyed last year on the 41 car by winning Martinsville early in the year.
Q. Are you planning on going to a Formula 1 race with him this year?
[adinserter name="GOOGLE AD"]KURT BUSCH: I haven't even looked at the F1 schedule to see what our off weekends look like as far as the one in April, the one in June and then the one late August. But the F1 thing intrigues me. I'm blown away by his commitment toward motorsports and what he does with the Haas Automation brand. It's a U.S. company, it's based here, competing against a lot of Asian companies in that category, and he's using the motorsports world as his forum to advertise Haas Automation. Form one 1 is obviously the most global motorsports division, and then here in the United States, NASCAR is the top at this vision to advertise with him, and you hope when everybody has a choice with CNC machine they go to Haas if they're affiliated with racing.
Q. (Question on the tire test.)
KURT BUSCH: The way that it worked this time in the Goodyear tire test that I did in Las Vegas was there was so many run logs of data they needed collected, it left us as a team with zero time to really use to check our own setup. It was baseline the car and let's run through all these sets of tires. So what's amazing is I believe the tire that we ended up all liking and that we're going to race at Las Vegas is a Talladega right side with a Kansas left side. That just shows you how much homework we did and how many sequences we went through because you can change a tire combination on a race car and pick up one second on lap time. We can sit there in happy hour and try to work on our car for an hour and maybe find two tenths of a second. So that's how important the tires are to the well being of our sport, to the competition side, to the safety side, and the way that in general we as a group in NASCAR have to appeal to the mass groups of people out there that Goodyear tires are the No. 1 tire to purchase.
Q. So the teams weren't really that able to
KURT BUSCH: Yeah, it's much more controlled by Goodyear, and I saw a master plan that looked much more thorough than in years past, and therefore they get to control the time that's allotted for us to be there. The only thing I'd like to see a little different is we tried a few times in years past where there was a group of cars that came to the track to rubber in the track, and then we approached the Goodyear tire test with more rubber on the racetrack to simulate closer conditions, and so that's the toughest part to simulate is the rubber buildup at a one day test with only four cars.