Kurt Busch Starting 37th In Sunday's Tums 500 In Virginia
October 23, 2009
MARTINSVILLE, Va. (Oct. 23, 2009) – Miller Lite Dodge driver Kurt Busch will start 37th in Sunday’s TUMS Fast Relief 500 here at Martinsville Speedway after turning in a lap of 19.956 seconds (94.889 mph) in today’s qualifying session here on this historical 0.526-mile paper clip-shaped short track.
“We’ve been struggling here all day, with the car being loose in, tight in the corner and loose off,” said Busch, currently fifth in the NASCAR Sprint Cup point standings, trailing leader Jimmie Johnson by 177 points with five races remaining to determine the 2009 series champion. “We think we’ll be quite a bit better in the race than what our qualifying effort showed. This is just a super-tough little track to get a handle on.”
“That’s definitely not what we’d hoped for, but we’ll just have to take it and go from there,” said crew chief Pat Tryson. “We decided to bring the car here that we ran so well with in the Richmond race (the PRS-621 chassis that finished second at Richmond last month) and still think we can come out of here with a decent finish on Sunday. We’re in a hole, but we’ve seen time after time that Kurt and our team do so well when there’s really nowhere to go but forward. We’re looking to advance all day here on Sunday.”
Busch’s Martinsville record certainly displays reason to believe he can excel, even after having to start toward the rear of the field. He won the October 2002 race here after starting from the 36th position.
Ryan Newman, 28th of the 44 drivers to make qualifying runs here this afternoon, picked up the Coors Light Pole Award with his fast lap of 19.563 seconds (96.795 mph). He will start inside of Jeff Gordon (19.619 seconds/96.519 mph) on the front row. Martin Truex Jr. (19.621/96.509) starts third, with Mark Martin (19.622/96.504) fourth and David Reutimann (19.701/96.117) fifth. Casey Mears, rookie Joey Logano, Bobby Labonte, Reed Sorenson and Kevin Harvick rounded out today’s top-10 qualifiers.
Among the other Chase drivers, Tony Stewart starts 13th, Jimmie Johnson 15th, Denny Hamlin 17th, Greg Biffle 20th, Juan Pablo Montoya 21st, Kasey Kahne 26th, Carl Edwards 29th and Busch 37th.
Busch’s Penske Racing teammates David Stremme (19.745 seconds/95.903 mph) and Sam Hornish Jr. (19.882/95.242) will start 11th and 31st, respectively, on Sunday.
Saturday’s first practice here at Martinsville Speedway, weather permitting of course, is scheduled from 10:30 a.m. till 11:15 a.m. The final “happy hour” practice session is scheduled from 11:50 a.m. till 12:50 p.m. (taped-delayed till 6:30 p.m. on ESPN2). Sunday’s TUMS 500 has a scheduled 2:00 p.m. local (EDT) starting time at the 0.526-mile high-banked facility. ABC-TV and MRN Radio will provide live coverage of all the action.
KURT BUSCH TOP-12 MEDIA INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT (Courtesy of Dodge):
WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON COMING BACK TO MARTINSVILLE THIS WEEKEND? “(This track is) Definitely one of our toughest tracks for the Penske team. I hope that all of our test runs at Little Rock (Rockingham) will come into play (this weekend). We ran over 1,000 laps at that little track trying to prepare and come up with as many scenarios that we could to get ready for Martinsville. We’ll see how things will shake out. It’s just one of those tracks where if you’re struggling, you hope that the light bulb comes on and that you can turn the corner and make it a good weekend.”
YOU TESTED OVER 1,000 LAPS AT LITTLE ROCK, WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS OF THAT PLACE? “I think it’s as good as an example of Martinsville that you can get and you have to find a way around the testing program. For us, we’d love to be at Kentucky every other week trying aerodynamic things, but we can’t. We’d love to be here at Martinsville testing, but we can’t. So we have to do the best that we can and Rockingham has two facilities – it has got the mile race track that we use to race at and the half-mile out back and they’re the closest thing that you’re going to find. You’re hope is not to get confused (with what you learn) because it doesn’t apply to a track that you actually race on.”
GIVING JIMMIE JOHNSON’S POINTS LEAD, IS THE CHASE FOR THE CHAMPIONSHIP OVER? “I feel like (Jimmie) has a good lead. I had a 92 point lead heading to Atlanta one year (2004) and we blew a motor and that lead blew up in smoke. Anything can happen. I feel like where we are in points…177 back…he’s gained those on us these first five races. What’s to say that we can’t gain that back on him in the next five? These next two races are really the ones that anything can jump up and bite you at any given moment. Talladega is bit more unpredictable. He’s definitely going to be tough to beat.”
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE UNIQUNESS OF MARTINSVILLE? “It’s a tough place. If we went to a Martinsville race track and expect not run into something, then that’s not going to be the case. You’re always on top of somebody; somebody is always on top of you. There’s no real room for error. If you have a bad pit stop after running in the top 10, you’re going to get spit out about 30th. The way that this track races, it’s like if we all went to Wal-Mart and set up Coke cans in the parking lot and just raced around Coke cans. It’s a tough, slick race track. It’s got real tight corners and there’s no other place on the circuit like it.”
WHERE DO YOU THINK THAT YOU NEED TO BE IN THE POINTS CHASE AFTER TALLADEGA IN ORDER TO CONTROL YOUR OWN DESTINY IN WINNING THE CHAMPIONSHIP? “With three races to go, if you try to gain 40 points a race, that’s doable. It gets down to who’s going to have trouble and who isn’t. The way that you have to look at it is that you have to run consistent and find spots at each race track to come away with a finish that is better than where you were running. For us, the average finish of eighth-place gets us fifth overall. You just have to be realistic and hope that you’re within a race of the leader and that’s around 160 points or 200 if they’re going to have trouble.”
HOW PATIENT CAN YOU BE HERE AT MARTINSVILLE DURING RESTARTS? “It definitely will be pretty wild there at the end. Being on the inside lane, you hope that you get the inside as much as the outside. You want it to be a 50-50 shake. If you’re out there and you’re hung out and you’re getting freight trained, there’s not much you can do other than find a teammate or find a hole that will help you get back to the bottom. It’s definitely going to be a learn-as-you-go process.”
HOW DO YOU LIKE YOUR BRAKE SETUP AT MARTINSVILLE? “I feel like you always have to have an extra turn towards rear brake because when you get out there in a long run, if you have too much front brake it’s going to heat up those front tires, they’re not going to turn for you really well and when you start to get that tight-in-the-center-of-the-corner feeling, then it only aggravates the car that much more. I feel like our balance is more of a 50-50 type and some other teams might be at 60-40 on the brake bias.”
SO TO CLARIFY, YOU HATE MARTINSVILLE OR LIKE MARTINSVILLE? “I think that it’s a great race track. We’ve been racing here since 1949. The cars use to not be able to finish a full 500 laps here. That’s not the case anymore. The cars are very durable. The brakes last all day long. It’s now a test of setups and who can get their car around here the best. I’ve won here before. It’s not my least favorite, but it’s definitely one of the most challenging tracks on the circuit.”
