Q and A with Kurt Busch
THOUGHTS ON LOUDON. "We're definitely gonna go for three in a row. The main objective, obviously, is to see how this new tire and spoiler combination feels when we're there in July, so we know what to do in September. It's very important to get off to a good start in the Chase because you can bump up from ninth to first in one week. Hopefully, we're in a better position this year. I think we went in there seventh last year and I think we can be a little bit better off and just get that strong run rolling for September. We'd love to go there and make it three in a row and then we definitely have to focus on the bigger picture when we go back there in September."
WILL YOU TAKE THE SAME CAR YOU WON BOTH RACES WITH LAST YEAR? "It's gonna be the same chassis and the same general geometry underneath the race car. It's just a different body to try to help aid with some of the loss of downforce. You start with the same basic setup and go from there, whether it's an impound race or a non-impound race."
MOST PEOPLE VIEW IT AS A SHORT TRACK EVEN THOUGH IT'S A MILE TRACK. WHY? "In my mind, I think it's a short track, but I know NASCAR designates it to be a superspeedway because it is over a mile in length. But it's flat, so it's very tight with the speeds that you run there. You don't get much downforce on the car, so it races more like Martinsville than it does a Dover, which is the same length of race track. If you look at all the wins that I've got on short tracks, I'm going to think of Loudon as a short track."
THE SERIES HAS GONE FROM A ROAD COURSE TO RESTRICTOR-PLATE TRACK TO BANKED OVAL TO FLAT OVAL. DO YOU LIKE THE VARIETY? "It's definitely better for a veteran-style team and ones that have cars built months in advance. If you're running three mile-and-a-halves in a row and you get off to a bad start on it, it might carry through to the second, third and fourth events. I like the variety. I liked when we used to go from Martinsville to Talladega – the smallest track to the biggest track – and then we've got road courses, speedways, mile-and-a-halves, and then a short track like Loudon. You just have to adapt to each one of them differently because they all demand something different from the driver." Ford Racing