Photo Credit: Jonathan Moore/Getty Images North America
Coming into Richmond International Raceway for the Toyota Owners 400, Kurt Busch, driver of the No. 41 Monster/Haas Automation Chevrolet sits seventh in points. In eight starts this season he has gotten two top-five and six top-10 finishes, but he still looking for his first win of the season.
Richmond was great to Busch last year as it was where he got his first win with then new crew chief Tony Gibson. The pair were only paired together for a few races in 2014 at the end of that season and 2015 was their first full season together.
“Just bang, bang, bang, just sliding around a little bit, but we didn’t quite finesse that maybe hit that exactly right, but we were cranking out top-10’s,” he said. “So we knew we only had a short way to go to find those rhythms for a win. It was great to win here at a short track. I think that is where him and I really have of our success us at the short tracks.”
The Las Vegas native seems to have a good fit with his driving style at the Virginia short track.
“There are things you have to do on a short track to work on conserving the tires also, making sure you are good on short runs, making sure you are good on long runs, because restarts have become so much more important over the last couple of years,” he said. “You don’t know if you are going to have a long run to finish the race or if you are going to have a short run.
“You’ve just got to be ready for everything and it seems like at the short tracks the preferred lane on restarts is becoming more and more important. You hope you are on the inside lane when it comes down to one final few restarts and that way you are able to gain positions instead of having to be on defense.
“Richmond is a fun track. They used to call it the action track, that was when the groove would widen out and get to two, three lanes wide. We always hope to get back to that and it’s a matter of finding the right tire and right down-force combination to allow the cars to race competitively side-by-side is safe situations. That is what we want to do is pit on a good show.”
There’s a lot of eyes on the organization as this weekend Busch will have Stewart-Haas teammate and owner Tony Stewart back in a race car after missing the first eight races due to an off-season injury.
“Well, it’s great to have our team owner and our lead driver back in the car,” he said. “To have an injury outside of racing it is always tough to go through, especially with (Tony) Stewart in a retirement type of mentality the way his emotions were going into this season. It’s great to see him recover as quickly as he did, to push through the rehab side of it to get back to the car. This is his retirement year. He is supposed to enjoy it. He wants to go out there and do well.
“I think Richmond is a perfect track or the body to come back to race, because of the lower demands physically on the body, there is not a lot of banking here. There is not a lot of G-Force and you have to get up on the wheel and turn the wheel, but he will be able to settle in. He has had good history here at Richmond.”
In 30 starts at Richmond, Busch has five top-10’s, three top-fives and two wins. He looks to add to these numbers this Sunday when the Toyota Owners 400 is run.
