Photo Credit: Noel Lanier
Kurt Busch, driver of the No.41 Monster Energy Ford, for Stewart Haas Racing, was excited to have his boss Tony Stewart back behind the wheel at Richmond International Raceway.
“Well, it’s great to have our team owner and our lead driver back in the car,” Busch 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 that 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 for the body to come back to a race, because of the lower demands physically on the body, because 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. He has had multiple wins and it’s just nice to see him jump back in the car so soon. Then to have a solid game plan for Talladega and then once we get to Kansas and Charlotte then he is off and running again. We just want him back in the car to work the bugs out of it to be as competitive as soon as possible.”
Stewart had a solid run back, fighting back from a flat tire mid-race to finish 19th. Though While Smoke wasn’t driving due to injury prior to this weekend, he was still around the track doing other things for the team.
“It was neat to have Tony’s involvement on the radio at some of the races, as well as, right next to the car during Happy Hour,” Busch said. “He was doing it for two reasons. One, as an owner you could see him putting that owner hat on and how to keep the spirits up on guys that were struggling in practice. Or two, as a driver, to learn what a good trend was as far as adjustments to the car and what he needed to think about as a driver when he was going to get back in.
“He has always done a tremendous amount behind the scenes. It was neat to see him there jumping into the owners’ role as well as just what it takes to stay involved as a driver so that the transition to come back isn’t going to be as steep for when he gets back in the car. It’s amazing when you have five or six races that go by some of those trends. You look back on what we did at Atlanta, the first 1.5-mile of the year is not what we are going to be doing at Kansas when we get there in a couple of weeks.”
There has been a lot of controversy over shadowing Stewarts return to NASCAR after his comments about the tires and how many lug nuts should be tight following a pit stop. NASCAR used to monitor the situation with making sure all five were tight by having an officer in each stall. However with switching to a video monitor system, the teams would told to monitor to themselves, as long as no wheels came off. If a wheel comes off, it results in a minimum four-week suspension for crew chief, tire changer and tire carrier. The possible penalties haven’t deteriated teams from pushing the boundaries as some are only tightning three or four per pit stop.
“I think it’s a safety issue that we should look to address before there is a negative outcome with it,” Busch said. “To me it makes sense to have five lugnuts. You want five of them tight. You go to your Goodyear Tire store and get your tires rotated they put on three lugnuts you are not going to feel so comfortable about that.”
NASAR has stated that they will look into the issue, one that Busch deems necessary to be discussed.
“This is such a juicy topic that any word can be placed in the wrong position and it ends up with a negative side effect, “Busch said. “I ran the Indy 500 a few years ago and it was really neat to see them take one lugnut off and then put the same lugnut right back on. There is a hub that I’m sure we could design in the NASCAR Sprint Cup garage area even for Xfinity or even for the Truck Series. But I was told that is not part of the show. The show is to watch those guys, the athletes, jump over the wall, hit their air guns and have them blazing and hit five lugnuts and put five back on. Just have that energy and the show part of it.
“I agree, it’s a unique aspect that our athletes who jump over the wall can perform and the fans can get into it. But when it’s starting to cross the threshold of safety on speed versus the ability just to have that wheel hang on and try to get a win that is what has happened here. We are all out there trying to get that one win and try to get locked into the Chase. I would say that now most of the Gibbs guys have their win and they are probably going to go back into a conservative mode for their pit stops to make sure they are getting them all tight. So, we shouldn’t have qualifying type pit stops to try to win the end of the race.”
