Catchfence

KURT BUSCH (No. 2 Miller Lite Vortex Dodge Charger)
YOU HAVE TO FEEL GOOD COMING BACK TO POCONO AS A PAST WINNER? “To come to a race track that you’ve won on, it always gets you pumped up and amped up for the weekend.  We didn’t have the best of races here a month ago, so we’re looking to rebound and put together a good strong effort that could give us a shot at a win.  We were just off that one race because we had one or two things wrong in our chassis setup.  Overall, our Miller Lite Dodge has been competitive.  The practice speeds were decent for us today.   We just didn’t get that perfect qualifying run; we were on the tight side.  We’ll loosen her up and give her a good run in qualifying.  Most importantly, tomorrow morning’s practices are the key moments of the weekend, trying to get the car dialed in for the longer run.  Hopefully, everything goes good for us.  It seems like when we can catch a good break, we can really do some good things and that’s what we’re looking for this weekend.”

WHAT ROLE SHOULD THE MEDIA PLAY IN DISCUSSING THE NASCAR CONTROVERSEY OF ISSUING SECRET FINES? “You’re entitled to your opinions and those are important.  We don’t need to necessarily focus on the empty grandstands that we see and write about it.  We need to worry about what racing action is going on out on the race track.  What’s going on behind the scenes as far as who got fined for saying what is like anything in any sport, if you’re going to criticize the officials, the officials are going to swipe back with some cash.  It’s all fun and games.  It has to be reported.  The biggest issue is what happens out on the track and that’s what we need to say focused on.”

HOW DO YOU APPROACH THE LAST SIX RACES BEFORE THE CHASE? “We feel comfortable with the point gap that we have on 13th place.  Where we are on the Miller Lite team, we’ll just go for wins.  We have to bring those bonus points with us into the Chase.  The thing to do is focus on what we have been doing this past month for setup and are they going to work at the tracks in the Chase.  Those are the important things – getting wins and staying focused on finding new ideas that will help propel us to a strong Chase.”

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE OWNERS MEETING THAT HAPPENED AT CHARLOTTE THIS WEEK?  HAVE YOU TALKED TO ROGER ABOUT IT? “I haven’t actually (talked to Roger).  I didn’t know that some of those meetings were going on.  Roger just said that they were coming up; I didn’t know that it happened this week.  There’s always the core focus on what we can do as a group to race at a competitive level like we are, but also do it cheaper.  Whether it’s engine-related items, the process of building cars…the new front end next year will definitely be a positive step in my mind and what we saw with the Nationwide cars at Daytona is the direction that we need to head to create more of that brand identity that we want to see with our race cars.  So those steps that NASCAR is taking to make sure there is better action on the race track as well as a cheaper budget for some of the teams are important.”

YOU MADE A COMMENT ABOUT THE NATIONWIDE CARS; WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE THAT (IDENTITY) TRANSFERRED OVER TO THE CUP SERIES? “Absolutely.  I think the way those cars look, the way they catch your eye, you know that one is a Chevrolet or that the Dodge Challenger looks pretty cool.  That’s the branding that we need to see back on the race track.  The way these cars look and run right now, we can do just the smallest thing to make them look better and that’s the direction I think we should head.”

WHAT ABOUT NEXT SEASON FOR KURT BUSCH? “I signed a multi-year deal to drive the No. 22 Shell Pennzoil car for 2011 and beyond.  I’ll still be with Penske Racing yes, but I’ll be in the No. 22 car.  Basically, we’re just changing our shirts and we’re changing the car number.  It will still be the No. 2 crew and Steve Addington is going to lead the group.”

THE RACE YOU HAD SEVERAL YEARS AGO WITH RICKY CRAVEN (DARLINGTON), COULD YOU TALK A LITTLE ABOUT THAT CLOSE FINISH? “That was an amazing race at Darlington, 2003.  The way that the track raced then with the old asphalt, tire management was of upmost importance.  We usually don’t hear that statement a lot any more because tires last so long.  You don’t have the high wear that you did have at Darlington.  So on that last run, I squirted out into the lead.  I got a three-wide pass done on Jeff Gordon and Elliott Sadler.  Maybe I ran a bit too hard early because Ricky Craven was chewing our time up at the end, almost a half-second a lap he was catching us.  Catching somebody at Darlington is one thing and passing them is another.  We put up a great fight, a great battle, between two guys that really respected each other.  We both ran each other as hard as we could.  We shoved each other into the wall, hit each other in the front bumper, rear bumper, in the door, you name it, but there was never that intention of wrecking the other guy, something that we see from some guy in our garage area right now that you don’t really want to race with because he’ll just turn right on you.  That day with Craven, it was an amazing race.  I felt like I’m going to win this bad boy and Craven is going to have to do something special to get by us.  He was thinking the same thing, he was going to win this race and Kurt was going to have to do something special to hold him off.  Just a great see-saw battle that went on the last five laps of an epic race and just to lose it by two-thousandths of a second, the more times I tell the story, maybe one day I’ll win it when I’m done telling the story.  A great guy, a great battle and two guys shook hands afterwards and, like hey, that was all I had.”

- Darnell Communications for Dodge Motorsports, Press Release