NASCAR Cup
Michigan: Kurt Busch - Saturday Dodge interview
KURT BUSCH (No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger) COMMENT ON ALL THE CHEVY VICTOREIS "The way this season's gone, and I'd said it all along, I said if there's a team that gets an advantage early with the COT they're going to be hard to chase down. I've ...
Edited: Jun 17, 2007, 2:08 AM
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KURT BUSCH (No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger)
COMMENT ON ALL THE CHEVY VICTOREIS "The way this season's gone, and I'd said it all along, I said if there's a team that gets an advantage early with the COT they're going to be hard to chase down. I've said that all along. We, at Penske, put a lot of focus on working on our cars and making them as fast as we can. We just haven't had the opportunities at the end of these races to be in position like the Hendrick cars. We were at Phoenix. We didn't have the best fuel mileage. We had to pit with 40 to go. The yellow pops out the next lap and we're running fifth and we end up 18th.
"At Richmond, we're leading the race and there's 80 laps to go. Do we pit or stay out? We pit. All the Hendrick cars stay out. We came back to finish fifth, but we were there. Denny Hamlin has been there where he was fast, but it just seems like the same team continues to win.
"Not a COT race at Pocono, cars have an opportunity to pit after a 10-12 lap run and a guy named Jeff Gordon stays out, which was completely against the grain. It wasn't getting him anything. He still had to pit before halfway, but what that did it cycled him and Mark Martin and Casey Mears to the front and it continued on that cycle and boom, the rain pops out 10 laps before he's got to pit. Luck has a lot to do with this sport. Sometimes when you have as much on your side as they do right now, they're tough to beat.
"Newman had a very fast car at Darlington. I was running third until the final pit stop and came out 17th. You can't have that in this sport. It just seems like they've got all their ducks in a row and everything is together for them. Whether the Ford teams are struggling or not or whether the Dodge teams are struggling, Toyota is developing, but with the regular cars the Chevrolets have this weird dish on their nose. The front end of their car is completely different than any other manufacturer. I think it allows them to race easier in traffic, whereas the Fords, Dodges and Toyotas seem to look a little different than the Chevys do. We're all in this together to earn points and be consistent. If they're using up all their luck now, that's great because The Chase is just around the corner. Maybe the luck will go to some of the other teams."
HOW MANY RACES COULD YOU HAVE WON THIS SEASON? "Daytona slipped away from us. At Texas we were leading with 40 to go. At Richmond we were leading with a very strong car and at Talladega we were running up front. We had half a dozen races where we were a top-three kind of car and we didn't put it there at the end. That's what we know we have to do. Cars like you have at Charlotte are tough to digest where you lead the first 200 laps and then nightfall comes in and you can't find the car. The balance goes away. At Dover we were running very strong, running eighth. We had some struggles in the pits, but we ended up getting wrecked when we had a top 10 car. We've had good cars. We've had good things happen to us on the track. We just haven't had 'em all happen on the same day."
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT TOMORROW'S RACE? "I feel real good. The car has reacted to my changes in practice and for us to be in the top 10 in qualifying and the top 10 in practice, we're right there. Now we just need to make sure we make the right changes when the track gets hot and slick tomorrow. It'd be nice if we start finishing better than we're running instead of finishing worse than we're running."
-credit: dodge motorsports
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