NASCAR Camping World Truck Series: NextEra Energy Resources 250

Topics:  NextEra Energy Resources 250

Kyle Busch
February 13, 2009

DAYTONA BEACH, FLORIDA

KERRY THARP: We'll roll into our post race press conference. We're pleased to be joined by tonight's race runner-up, Kyle Busch.
Kyle, tough finish there at the end. Your thoughts about how things unfolded.
KYLE BUSCH: It was a good day. It was a good race, I guess. You know, got to thank Toyota, Miccosukee, Red Top Auto Auction, all the people that have helped us get there. Billy Ballew Motorsports team gave us a good truck. They worked all the off-season building that thing.
It was a fast truck. We just kept fighting it all night, bottoming out. Not bottoming out in traffic, but bottoming out out front. Overall, I guess the last lap I screwed up once again this year. Last year I did the same thing. Can't time it right. Can't get the timing going. I keep planning the last five laps in a row to try to get it. Thought I had an idea about it. Again, screwed up this year.
So just can't get the timing right.
KERRY THARP: We'll take questions for Kyle Busch.

Q. Kyle, could you go through the sequence of events that took place on pit road when you were assessed a speeding penalty, then it was rescinded. Were you surprised, because under the new system, supposedly, it was to be a cut and dry kind of speeding or no speeding thing.
KYLE BUSCH: Yeah, it is. It's supposed to be black or white. It either comes up red on the screen or it doesn't. I don't know what happened there. I'd like to find out, get an answer so it doesn't happen the rest of the weekend for anybody else. Not just myself, but for anybody.
That mistake doesn't need to happen. Unfortunately there when we found out we had a penalty, we just lollygagged. We didn't worry about getting off pit road at all. We kept spending time working on damage. We could have gotten out, probably restarted up in the top 10. But we just kept working on our damage, working on this, working on that, sitting in the pits, just waiting, and then took off slow and didn't speed down pit road again.
Came back down the next time, sat there, worked on damage again, topped the gas tank off, topped it off again, sat there, worked on damage.
They told us we didn't have a speeding penalty, so they gave me three spots.

Q. Kyle, just curious as to how you plan to manage the pit stop choice between tires and fuel if NASCAR hadn't called that debris caution at the end of the first fuel run.
KYLE BUSCH: We were coming to pit road. We were going to put gas in it because -- debris caution, good one (laughter). Coming to pit road, you're going to have to put gas in it. You ain't going to go anywhere without gas. You can run on cords for a while, which is what I had. I had cords on the right front showing, ended up stopping that time anyway.
Fortunately we did get a NASCAR caution there. We were able to get tires and fuel without any issue.

Q. Kyle, could you tell us a few words about how it went with J.R. Fitzpatrick in front of the pack, battling, getting tires, back up front for his first Superspeedway race.
KYLE BUSCH: He was doing a fine job. When you're up front like that leading the race, it's kind of the second-, third-, fourth-place guy to sit there and ride with you, as the case was for a little bit. It got crazy. I was fine with it just kind of sitting there.
Then the 88 was bringing the topside, and then the 30 jumped out there. Everybody and their mom wanted to go to the high side, and it doesn't go anywhere. So eventually somehow it got up there. I don't remember what happened. I think we got three-wide. I went up to block the top. J.R. followed me. The 6 truck shot through on the bottom.
He did a fine job. He did exactly what he was supposed to do. I didn't see the end, so I don't know how he battled back to fourth, but that was a good job for him.

Q. Kyle, going into the last lap, did you expect to have anybody help you? If the outside wasn't going to work, what were you trying to do?
KYLE BUSCH: Well, the plan was to knock Todd out of the way. Get to turn three and get his rear tires off the ground and get him to move up the track and get him out of the way. All that did was shoot him further ahead.
I just sat there and was gathering my stuff up, trying to figure out how to plan the attack for the run down the front straightaway. Once we got back to the short chute over here, Terry pulled to my outside. If I would have had Terry push me or hit me or bump-draft me or whatever, I probably could have pulled up alongside Todd and probably gotten my nose to his nose by the start/finish line.
I still don't think I would have beat him, but I probably could have made a better finish out of it. Instead, Terry went to the outside of me, did what he was supposed to do to try to pass me. Just didn't work out.
Never will for me, I guess. I'm kind of frustrated in myself just not being able to figure this out yet. I got the cars kind of figured out, but I can't get the trucks going.

Q. Did you get a lot of damage in the one big wreck going into turn one?
KYLE BUSCH: I got a little bit. I think the most damage I got was to the right rear quarter panel, the right bumper there. There was pieces of debris and everything flying. I had a piece of bumper up on my cab, hit my windshield. A big melee there. It was a hard hit from the 1 truck into the 4 truck, I believe.
From there, it was just trying to figure out what else to miss, you know, who else was coming through behind you that was still on the throttle.

Q. Kyle, I don't want to put words in J.R.'s mouth, but he said on pit road that he's kind of a fan of yours. He was like, Wow, Kyle Busch behind me. Kind of cool. Does that make you feel old that now you're in a position?
KYLE BUSCH: I feel old when Joey Logano came in at 18. That was me a few years ago. Like I said before, J.R. was doing a fine job, leading the pack, doing exactly what he needed to do. When stuff went crazy, I pulled up to block the outside lane, and J.R. pulled up to stay with me. I figured that was probably the smart thing to do.
There went the 6 truck along the bottom. We kind of had to hang him back out there a little bit. Fortunately he worked his way pack up. Did a nice job apparently; finished fourth.

Q. Kyle, would it be possible to put a safety barrier on that outside wall, or would it just take away too much racing room?
KYLE BUSCH: It's gonna take a little racing room, but I don't think that three feet is a big deal as far as would you rather have safety or would you rather have racing room. I think I'd rather have safety there.
I don't know why it ends in turn two and then picks back up. The funny thing is, it picks back up right there getting down past the gate going into turn three down the back straightaway. You're always leaving that room there anyway, because you know the wall is going to pop up at you.
If you're right up next to the concrete wall, you're gonna plow right into the Safer Barrier. It's kind of dumb that you have to leave yourself that room there. If the wall was just flat all the way down, you would know where it was, you would know how to handle it.
I don't even know if they still use that crossover with the tunnel in place. It's kind of pointless. I think we need to look at that here.
KERRY THARP: Kyle, thanks a lot. Good luck tomorrow.
KYLE BUSCH: Thank you.