Michigan: Kyle Busch post qualifying interview

KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 M&M's Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Starting Position: 2nd

How strong is your race car?

"It wasn't bad. Actually, I thought it was a pretty good lap. Figured it would get beat, but not by what it got beat by. Myself and Jimmie (Johnson) ran relatively close lap times and (Brian) Vickers was up about a tenth from me. A tenth at a place like this, with these cars, is a lot. Not sure where (Brian) Vickers got that, but a good lap from him and his team. Felt like the M&M's Toyota was good when we unloaded here -- felt like it had good grip. The best we've unloaded at this place in a while, so we're excited about that. Hopefully, tomorrow in Happy Hour we can work on it a little bit and just try to get a little more longevity out of it for the long run."

How important is it to qualify up front?

"It's important to qualify up front in general, just for the start of the race. It gives us good pit selection. There's only about eight openings here on pit road, so the top -eight is really crucial. Besides that, you've got to be up front all day long in order to take benefit of those double-file restarts. It should be good for us."

Do you feel like your momentum for winning might have started at Nashville?

"No, because if you look at Sunday, we sucked -- all day. Pocono is just one of those tracks for me though. I don't know what's wrong there. Here at Michigan, I don't know why, we run good at California for some reason, but here there's just something about it. I don't know if its easier for everybody else or we just can't get around here. It's a little different, but for me it's a fun track -- I like it, I enjoy it and we ran second here last fall, which was my best run here ever. Had a shot to win, but we were just too tight on the last run. Carl (Edwards) beat us. I think it was a green-white-checkered finish. Feel like we've got something good this weekend, better than what we had here last year."

-credit: toyota motorsports