By Dan Margetta
Speedway, Ind., July 22 — While winless this deep into the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season, defending Brantley Gilbert Big Machine Brickyard 400 winner Kyle Busch comes to the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway with an opportunity to become the first NASCAR driver to score three straight victories in the prestigious event.
“It’s pretty cool to come here knowing we’ve got a chance to go for three in a row and yet it’s ultimately frustrating in the same breath that it’s been 365 days since we’ve won one of these things,” Busch stated during a media session, “It certainly hasn’t been due to a lack of effort as we’ve had fast race cars and our Toyotas have been good, it’s just every single week it seems that something else kind of bites us. It’s not the same thing over and over again, it’s just little things here or there that keep kind of working against us.”
“There are two other cars that have been fast this year, the 78 (Martin Truex Jr.) and the 42 (Kyle Larson) have been really, really good, “ Busch continued, “I feel like we’ve been right there with them. We’ve led plenty of laps this year and have been in plenty of positions to win but we don’t have the win numbers to show for that.”
“The last few years here, we’ve been able to capitalize on what I’ve been feeling in the race car and have been able to work on it and fix it, I feel like that’s probably the biggest thing,” Busch stated, theorizing on why he has had so much recent success at Indy, “There’s times when you are at race tracks and you’re working on your car and it seems to keep doing the same thing over and over again and you just can’t find the niche that will fix it. I think (crew chief) Adam (Stevens) and myself were able to find that here a couple of years ago and we’ve been able to answer all our questions.”
“We’ve been coming here for three years in a row with three different aero packages in the Cup car, so that’s certainly going to be interesting as far as this year goes, “ Busch said, “One of the most difficult pieces about the race here at Indy is just being able to pass and getting runs on guys and being able to make your move whether it’s off the corner in turns one, two, three, or four. You just have to pick and choose how you can get to the guy in front of you and make that move.”
“You can’t be too tight.” Busch continued, “There is a balance of being able to turn through the corners here which are really, really flat and then still being able to accelerate forward with the horsepower we have out of the turns and down these long straightaways.”.
“I’m good enough, my team’s good enough that we can go out and score another win here and make it three in a row and do something that’s unprecedented in the NASCAR ranks here.”