Photo Credit: Mike Holloway/OnPitRoad.com
Kyle Busch, driver of the No. 18 Interstate Batteries Toyota, won the Duck Commander 500 at Texas Motor Speedway. He also won the XFINITY Series race there the night before. This would be his second career weekend sweep in a row, as well as his second NASCAR Sprint Cup series win at TMS and his 13th career win in all three NASCAR national series.
“Well, it was a really good effort,” Busch said. “You know, Adam Stevens and all these guys, they come here well-prepared to start with, and had a good practice plan and everything, and we were able to set up our race car to my liking. Wasn’t necessarily the fastest qualifier, but we knew we had a good race car, and the things that we did kind of worried me actually for about the first two-thirds of the race, just not — the track wasn’t necessarily coming to us, but then all of a sudden it took a shift and things did come to us, and we had a really good car there at the end.
“Adam made awesome adjustments all night long, though, and kept us in the game and kept getting us better and took us from probably being a sixth-, eighth-place car, something like that, to then being able to run up front in the top three, and barring different tire circumstances or different restart circumstances at the end, giving us a shot to win. “Hats off to those guys on the pit box and being able to get us here tonight with Interstate Batteries being in victory lane.”
The crew had good pit stops and his crew chief Adam Stevens had excellent strategy in making sure to put on four tires on their final pit stop. He credits them for helping him get into Victory Lane.
“Well, everything was really straightforward until we had that short run there at the end and kind of hung the 78 and Martin and Cole out there,” Stevens said. “They were in a bad spot being the leader, having the four green flag laps on the tires. The thing that made that a little bit easier, obviously, was we had so many sets on the ground because we had some longer runs prior to that, so we were ahead of schedule on tire usage, and the guys behind us were really fighting their cars, so we knew most of them were going to be looking to pit road, and when we saw them all dive down, it was an easy call to come to pit road and get some tires.”
Busch has been on a tremendous run lately winning in both the Cup and XFINITY Series for Joe Gibbs Racing. The stretch of recent success goes all the way back to last season, resulting in a very happy car owner in Joe Gibbs. Like Busch, he credits that success to both driver and crew chief, but also how that was developed prior to the recent success.
“Well, first thing I want to mention, it’s hard to get a chemistry like Adam and Kyle have,” Gibbs said. “I think they developed it, I think, over the XFINITY program and everything that happened there. But to get them out to do what they did last year, Adam’s first year, just really, I think, it’s a special chemistry that they have, and I think it shows up week after week. A big thanks to them for that and all the hard work that Adam puts into that.
“Our pit crew, too, our guys that work in that area, we spend a lot of time on that. It’s a big deal for us, and it really pays off. It was, I think, a great night for the guys going over the wall. I want to say we love coming here. So many of our sponsors were here yesterday and today. It’s a huge deal for us. Obviously to win here for Interstate at home, Norm, that’s a thrill for him, and he certainly deserves it. We talked about him last night, how much he means to our team and the fact that we probably wouldn’t be here or being racing if it wasn’t for him. So it was a thrill for Interstate.
“We got M&M’s, called them and just thanked them because they’re the major sponsor on the car, and they get to celebrate every victory we have. Huge, huge night for us. I wished everybody back home that works on the cars and do all that hard work at home, I wish they could be here with us and celebrate, but I want to say a thanks to them. The fun thing about this is all the people that get to go with you.”
Since his leg injury in Daytona International Speedway last year and he came back after missing 10 races, he has been on a roll as he has led over 1,200 laps, has 7 wins and 21 top-10 finishes. Needless to say Busch is on fire.
“It is,” Busch said. “You know, and I think that it’s just a part of everyone coming together. I think it’s a part of the whole team. It’s not just me, it’s not just Samantha, but it’s Adam Stevens, it’s Coach Gibbs, it’s the organization and everyone rallying around us. It’s my medical team, everyone that helped me, as well, getting me healthy, too, and forcing me to do the therapies and things like that and getting up in the morning and going and trying to get better faster.”
Busch added that he’s fortunate to have the chemistry with Adam Stevens, and credits what they were able to build in the XFINITY Series. Stevens and Busch won 12 of 26 XFINITY races in 2013, followed by another seven wins a year later.
“If we would have came into this Cup deal not really knowing each other, it probably wouldn’t have been as good as it was,” he said. “So I think that has been a huge part of it, as well, too. It’s all worked real well, and it’s been exciting to have the success that we’ve had as of late, and let’s just keep it going.”
After the Texas sweep, he is only the second driver since Harry Gant in 1991 to sweep two national series weekend back-to-back weekend. Bristol Motor Speedway is the next race on the schedule, and the questions remains – will he go for three in a row? Everyone is waiting to see if he can keep his magic going.
“I’d admit I think it’s everything,” Busch said. “You’ve got to have all the pieces of the puzzle put together, but I think more importantly we’ve got good cars, but the crew chiefs are just doing a really good job right now, I think, just being able to apply all the things that we’ve learned over the couple of years. We knew we were behind, and when we were struggling a couple years ago when we were behind, we were working in all areas of the race car and trying to make it better, trying to make it better, and we knew TRD was behind a little bit, and when those guys caught up, man, it was easy. It was easy for us to gain speed because that’s a huge proponent of what we do each and every weekend, which is that engine. “
“You know, now I feel like the TRD guys are on top of their game, as well. We’ve got everything going for us. The cars are good, engines are good, and crew chiefs are smart. Again, whole puzzle.”
After the Fontana race earlier this season he did a little twitter Q and A with his fans and someone asked him what his goals in racing are now. He replied that since he had won a NASCAR championship his next goal was to race in the Indianapolis 500, but in order to do that he would need to get permission from his team owner.
“I don’t know,” Busch said. “I’d give it a whirl. But I’ve got to get it approved here first.You know, it would be pretty funny if I can get my Cup sponsors to pay for it. Then it would be pretty easy to convince Joe, so that may be my best strategy, so I’ll work on that. We’ll see.”
