Kurt Busch
Kurt Busch
Kurt Thomas Buschis an American professional stock car racing driver. He currently competes full-time in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, driving the No. 41 Chevrolet SS for Stewart-Haas Racing. He is a second-generation racing driver; his father, Tom, won several NASCAR-sanctioned events. He is the older brother of 2015 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion Kyle Busch...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionRace Car Driver
Date of Birth4 August 1978
CityLas Vegas, NV
CountryUnited States of America
Obviously this wasn't the end result we were looking for, ... We were in position for a great finish at Dover, a track that hasn't always been our best, but unfortunate circumstances lined up against us again.
Last year we saw (Tony) Stewart have trouble as well as (Jeremy) Mayfield and they never seemed to rebound after that, ... It's just the pace. In a lot of ways it's like a golf tournament. If you start off and you're four- or five-under and the other guys are waffling around with a bogey and a par, they're not gonna catch you. It's up to the leader to make those mistakes and we did have a big mistake at Atlanta with the motor blowing up. That took away our solid advantage, so when you have a bad race early on it's just that much more difficult to overcome later on.
One thing that really helped me decide that I needed to go was their program of consolidating all the cars. I used to have a plate where they built my cars. One guy was the leader, they had a couple of 'grunts' around him and they built the car. That guy had spent 10 years of his life working up the stepladder to become a plate leader. Now, they have him putting right-front fenders on all five cars. The personality and identity is gone. I think that's a mistake as far as operating a business. We'll see how that turns out for them.
There's no more important test than Vegas. We've got quite a bit of guessing to get through the next part of the season, and that's why this test is very important.
Race tracks have somewhat gone away from building charisma and building an identity. They all seem to look the same. Fans are going to get a new perspective when they come to Las Vegas Motor Speedway that's so much different from all the other tracks. That's what it's all about, putting a new face on it for the fans.
Don't just do it. You have to make an impact and tell them you learned some things and that you're going to make sure that doesn't happen again.
Seeing Tony do it last year at Indy, I was envious. I said, 'I want to do that at Vegas.' It's a big race for me and my little brother, of course. I watched the track get built from the ground up.
Roy and I have talked a lot about it already. He says he can't wait for a chance to make those strategic calls and I have a world of faith and trust in him. Roy and Matt have always worked great together and they both stay so cool under pressure.
Rusty is definitely very keen on what shocks you need to run at Bristol, the different adjustments. I'm going to use that knowledge as well as what I've had there in the past.
There's a 26-race regular season where you can bring the intensity of the final 10 into every week, and that will burn you out pretty quick,
This is something we've been looking forward to for many races -- Richmond. We wanted to get a good finish because it has bit us so many times.
That's why we're here testing at Richmond. That's the cutoff for the Chase. They want to make it an equal opportunity for everybody when it comes down to the wire whether you're in or out. There are no excuses.
That's what makes our sport so unique. You can sit there and watch it on TV, and you get more of the perspective of the pit strategy and the way the guys are passing each other out on the track. Then when you come to the race, you lose a little bit of that, but you can still see live what's going on, and you can get a scanner and hear the teams and what transmissions go back and forth. And you have the smell, you've got the sight, the feel. When cars come by at 200 miles an hour, it blows you away.
(A race you win) is one less race for things to go wrong, ... You can look at it from many different directions, and for us, we wanted to capitalize on the first eight races and after Atlanta we were forced into making sure we didn't have anything go wrong after that. We wanted to attack for as many races as we could, and then you have to play it cool, because you can only go for so long.